RPG Podcasts

Alright, I turned on the radio and heard Christmas music the day after Halloween. I love Christmas music... at Christmastime. This is why I listen to podcasts when I drive.

Let me give you my short rundown of Favorite RPG Podcasts*. The link is for the associated blog and the naked link is the feed location.

Thought Eater Podcast by Jeremy “frothsof” Smith. This is an Anchor podcast covering all things blogs on Wednesdays and a five minute Friday show, which is often off the cuff and right from brain to 'cast. He has 130 shows in the can, so you have a lot of replay-ability. Love it.

Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thought-eater/id1448611668?uo=4

The Red Dice Diaries by John Alan Large. Like Jeremy, John has 102 episodes available, so the back catalog is huge. Again, I love this show. John runs the gambit of gaming, so this the depth is great. He sometimes takes time out to cover methodology, so you might hear about things like journaling, preparation and from special guests. In addition to special guests, John throws the topics over to Hannah for treatment. It's like 2 or 3 podcasts in one. A wonderful find.

Link: https://anchor.fm/s/55de8b4/podcast/rss

A relative new comer is the Super Adventure Friends Co. Podcast by Robert Loftin and friends. They have only 7 episodes, so if you want to jump in from the start on an excellent Traveller/Science Fiction pod cast, here you go. This is the first ensemble pod cast I encountered, with five high school friends chatting about great stuff. (Red Dice Diaries also gets this vibe when John hosts his friends.)

Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/super-adventure-friends-co-podcast/id1465659876?uo=4

The last podcast I signed up for is vb Wyrde's Sunday Night Live From ElthosRPG. ElthosRPG is it's own thing and vb is ALL ABOUT METHODOLOGY. Mechanics, ideas, fitting it all together, from a non-D&D point of view. Great, eye-opening stuff.

Link: https://anchor.fm/s/ed1f0d4/podcast/rss

*The little star beside Favorites is there because I reserve the right to add more favorites. They Might Be Gazebos was previously mentioned and has it's own post. I've left off Patreon information in this post, that will be revisited later.

A clock that swings with no tick tock

No, the Romans didn't have 8 hour days, but their time
measurement was chaotic. 

As mentioned in the last post, I will be talking about time. The Romans had a 24 hour day like we do, but it differed significantly due to the technology they had available to them. The Romans used sundials in daylight and water clocks at night. But how they used them is odd.

They divided day and night into 12 hours, there was exactly 12 hours of each. But what about seasonal adjustments? Forget it. They simply made each hour longer or shorter. An hour could vary between 45 minutes and 75 minutes in length.

Oh, that is a headache.

Also, the typical Roman wasn't much of a breakfast eater. They would shovel in whatever they had left over and be on their way. They only had between 540 and 700 minutes of daylight in their 12 hour day. At night, watches were divided into 3 hour shifts for a total of 4.

Remember the rules about vehicles in Rome? With very few exceptions, no one rode by day. So walking was the only means of transport.

So did the Romans have traffic cops?

Yes, they did. Two types in the Empire. The first was the Vigiles, a fire brigade. Since the city of Roman was sacked and urban planning went out the window, Rome had 7,000 Vigiles to monitor the city for fire and address traffic issues at night. These men were former slaves or freedmen and they would gain their citizenship after a number of years of service, usually 6. You'd think that they would have loyalty issues, but this had been done in Greece, Alexandria, etc. with no problem. It was an age old solution to the issue of fire.

The Vigiles not only handled traffic infractions, but the recapture of runaway slaves and the arrest of law breakers. During daylight hours, the Urban Cohorts took over these duties. They number about 3,000.

Prior to this, in the Republic, the Three Men of the Night would do these duties. They were called a triumviri and were responsible for administrative functions. This would have been the leadership of the groups of men that would have performed these functions, they numbered more than 3. When the Urban Cohorts and Vigiles took over, the Three Men became prison wardens. The triumviri give their name to the First and Second Triumvirate, the most powerful people in the government.

The main difference between the Republic's triumviri and the Urban Cohorts and Vigiles is, the triumviri were also judges and executioner which explains their shift to prison duty.

And the Sun Went Down on Rome

Sunset is a natural break in activity. Dinner is done, the fire is lit and it's time to settle down around the campfire.

Unless you stirred up a mess of orcs at noon. Then they are coming to get you. Or you have to hike through a particularly bad neighborhood to get to the Inn.

Ancient Rome, after Julius Caesar had a special hell. If you have ever seen a Roman city, you'd expect that everything was all orderly and right angled. That is true for everywhere except Rome itself. In the 390s or 380s BC, Rome was sacked and burned by the Gauls. Most people would have given up at that point and the sun would have set on their civilization. But not the Romans. Orders were given to rebuild the city as quickly as possible and that threw the normally orderly Romans into a tizzy of building. There was exactly zero planning.

By the time of Julius Caesar, Romans had private chariots and coaches, in addition to equines and all the wagons and carts needed for industry. The streets of Rome were packed with vehicles and animals that take far more strength to operate than a modern vehicle. Being an Absolute Ruler is wonderful. Julius ordered an end to carts and wagons during daylight hours. All carriages and chariots were limited to the last two hours of daylight.

And with one law, the streets of Rome were safer. In daylight, that is. At night, in the dark, all of those carts, wagons, horses, mules, chariots and carriages were unrestricted, making the city a death trap for pedestrians. Anyone without some sort of conveyance would dash home before dark, before the streets became dangerous.

Crime was probably pretty low at night. What right minded villain would risk their own life out on the streets with all that vehicle traffic?

There were excepts for specific classes of traffic during daylight hours: Priests, Vestal Virgins, and Triumphing generals could ride during the day. The Romans were all about holy days or holidays, so festivals processions were exempted, too. At various times, construction contractors had the right to travel in daylight to make city improvements.

Some roads were so narrow, that they were closed to vehicles day and night. This was done with stone pillars, rather than signs. Other roads were so narrow that only one vehicle could pass. The Romans didn't have one way streets, they sent runners ahead to block travel. As you can imagine, this would cause some conflict.

In my next post, we'll talk about time, city services and police in ancient Rome. 

Never Surrender?

Surrender or not, that is often the end of combat in D&D for the party or their enemies.

But what does surrender mean? Death? Imprisonment?

In history, there are many cases of surrender that end in neither death nor imprisonment. At the Battle of the Caudine Forks, 324 BC, the Romans walked into a trap. The Samnites, lead by Gaius Pontius trapped the Roman Legion in the passes with barricades. The Romans quickly realized their mistake and erected a camp. However, no attack was forthcoming. Gaius Pontius meant to wait until the food and water was gone, then accept terms.

However,  Gaius Pontius was too pleasantly surprised by this victory and sent a message to his father, Herennius, asking what he should do with the Romans. He hadn't expected this outcome. Herennius replied that Gaius should let them go. Herennius was a general in his own right, and this message didn't sound right to his son. The next message was much clearer: "Kill 'em all!" But Gaius was convinced that his father was going senile and sent for him.

Herennius arrived and explained that freeing the Legion and sending them on their way would position the Samnites and Roman for eternal peace through practical magnanimity. The other option, killing them all, would result in peace for a generation as Rome rebuilt it's legion to attack the Samnities.

Gaius Pontius decided on a third path, the yoke. Each Roman would be disarmed and forced to stoop under a spear lashed across the path home. Being wildly driven by honor, the Romans did this but marched home burning with anger. Either the Senate refused the treaty terms or merely waited until an excuse for war in 316 BC is unclear.

In either case, this appears to be a retelling of a tale from either the Punic Wars or a contemporaneous account of something Alexander the Great pulled off in his many campaigns. Truth or no, it establishes many cases where one side will let the other side to walk off relatively intact. Battles to the death in ancient times had a tendency of wiping out citizen farmers, which could result in massive disruptions of the economy or society of both combatants.

So, Herennius message is valid for gamers and generals alike. In the context of lawful or good characters, an honor bound solution is within the realm of possibilities.

52 Weeks of Magic - Item 36 - Ring of the Mile

The Ring of the Mile is a curious item of dubious benefit. The ring allows the character to teleport without error, a distance up to 4 times their walking speed, within a line of sight. The ring will only carry the wearer and whatever they are carrying. If a second person is carried, their entire weight must be on the wearer, which makes the process difficult. 

The character using the ring will vanish in a puff of golden sparks and appear in a cloud of black smoke which quickly dissipates. They are very easy to spot, the difficulty in tracking them are physical obstacles and their speed. 

The ring is activated in a single segment by twisting it. The ring will function once per round for any number of rounds. 

The user will find that the ring will drain their endurance, as if they had run that distance. After 5 uses per day, the character must make a saving throw vs. Paralysis to continue using the ring. The total SAFE distance the ring can transport someone is about a mile or so. If the saving throw is made, the character must roll on the following table for each additional use:  

1-2 Staggered: On one knee.
3-4 Grounded: On both knees.
5 Prone: Face down on the ground. Can only see 60 feet forward, and 120 feet left and right. 
6 Supine: Face up on the ground. Can only see to the left and right.
7 Tears: The character can barely see. There is 50% chance of reversing direction.
8 Eyes shut: The character has lost the ability to see.

None of these effects will prevent the use of the ring, however it will make traveling in a specific direction nearly impossible. Characters will recover from any of these effects in 3 rounds. Many of the status will cause a second character to be separated from the wearer. If the second character takes up the ring, they do not start at zero; they start at the point where the other user was and may become incapacitated on the first use. 

Failing the save will cause the person to flop to the ground for 5 rounds. After this time has passed, any movement (walking, crawling, etc.) will cause the character to roll on the above table for the next four rounds.  

The Tek - October 2019 Stats

October 2019 Downloads via DriveThruRPG:
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 10
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 10
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 9
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 9
Swashbucklers Character Class - 4

Webstats:
Google Analytics Pageviews - 933
Google Analytics Sessions - 618
Pageviews per Session - 1.35


Stats are down this month by 9.5%. Why? Because I didn't post a lot in the first week of the month, and what I posted was Inktober materials which do not entirely match up with my readership on D&D.

Back in August, I set a goal of 750 Pageviews. Even going down 9.5%, I managed 933 page views. That makes me happy.

Downloads from DriveThruRPG were stronger this month at 42 total. If I had a $10 product, I'd be golden. Unfortunately, I don't have a $10 product, so I can just be happy over one download a day.

At the end of this month, DriveThruRPG was under attack and my downloads didn't change much. That issue is seems resolved, but it was very fluid for a while. They did a good job protecting themselves (and me) as near as I can tell.

November is typically a rough month for me. If I can hold the line at 750 Pageview, I'll be happy.

New things you can expect this month:

• A tab for my favorite podcasts
• A tab for my blog roll
• All posts, past and present, will have images added to them
• All posts, past and present, will be reedited and wordsmithed to reduce errors. 

The last is my Rebellion for NaNoWriMo. Instead of cranking out 50,000 words for a novel of dubious quality, I plan to edit tens of thousands of words to improve my website.

UPDATE Jan. 12, 2020. I've decided to at some images of my Google Analytics to this post.

September 2019

October 2019

November 2019

NaNoWriMo - Rebellion

Every year I sign up for NaNoWriMo and every year I never really finish. This year, rather than a novel, I plan on doing something functional. I want to wordsmith every blog post I have ever made and if possible, add an image for each.

I figure this task is on par with writing 50,000 words. And I think it is something I need to do anyway.

As I work on that, I will also wordsmith all of my publications and add more artwork to each.

It's a reasonable endeavor, at least more reasonable than kicking out a novel.

52 Weeks of Magic - Item 35 - Lead of Calling

The Lead of Calling is a weak magical device used by country witches and sometimes huntsmen and trackers. The Lead of Calling will allow the user to call back a lost animal within a league of the wielder. The animal will take it's sweet time responding, often as much as 3 hours, but it will come. So long as the wielder's only intent is to collar and return the animal, the animal will behave as if it was charmed.

This Lead only works on domesticated animals, which does not include cats.

If the animal is more than 3 miles away, the Lead will indicate the direction to the animal.

There is a powerful and dangerous side effect to this magic item. If the animal is killed while on the lead, the holder will be struck down as if Mazed. They will be trapped in this maze until the animal is consumed, buried or naturally decays. The maze will continuously replay the animals last moments and the character cannot avoid this. There is no saving throw. The trapped person will also experience everything the animal's body experiences in death, from two perspectives, one of being the animal and one of being the Mazed watcher. They cannot starve, die of thirst or inclement weather in this condition. They may awake with one or more phobias or insanities from this effect.

52 Weeks of Magic - Item 34 - Aerialist's Skin

Flying is a little more than throwing one's self at the ground and missing.

This week's magic item is the Aerialist's Skin. This item appears as a rolled runner made of some sort of soft parchment. It feels slightly tacky and can be either brightly colored or a natural tone. It can be found at magic academies as much as at traveling circuses. The runner is laid down along a course or under the trapeze in lieu of a net.

The Aerialist's Skin somehow contains a fractional dimension, meaning that it acts like a net or trampoline. It does not need to be suspended like a net, the falling victim's body penetrates into the fractional dimension of the Skin, rather than the cold, hard ground. The Skin's surface is soft, with a lot of give. It will reduce damage from speed or falling by 6d6 or the equivalent of falling from 60 feet. The tackiness of the surface is amplified by speed and impact meaning that a person falling onto it will not roll or bounce off.

The Aerialist's Skin is unlikely to find its way into a dungeon, but it is an interesting "consumer magic device" which the general public will have a small amount of experience with. Wizards use it to learn to fly. Circuses use it as a safety device for high wire acts. Creative thieves and thief acrobats may find a use for it in cat burglary.

The material is flammable, so usually it is wet down before use.

Pulling it together...

Well, I am trying to put together a Patreon Campaign. Patreon is a great idea, but realistically, it is a one stop shop for pulling together some sort of Campaign or major production. No one is there to just fork over money so you can "do some stuff and things".

So, what do I got?

I don't like the tier system, because assigning items/rewards to tiers is a bit wonky if the items don't have a 1 to 1 correspondence. Ok, I'll have to think about it. But what does someone get for a couple of bucks?

A city. Not a module, or a game, but a place to have their characters live in.

I have this great software called Worldographer from Inkwell Ideas. It produces maps like the one above. It comes with a license so you can use in commercial works. That ok, but it's someone else's art work. As a starting point, it's ok.

What comes next follows that person's work. As I look at these little icons, I start to think of how each one appears on the outside, from street level.

That image is how I picture those large villa structures on the upper right side of the map.

And of course, since I have the street view, I can easily image in the interiors.

Interiors give way to "who lives here?", which leads to character art and sheets. That I can do.

How would it look?

I would like an atlas feel, so that each of the facing pages reference each other. On the left page would be the color mini-map, a sketch and a hand drawn interior map of the structure.

On the right side would be a character sketch, a description and a character sheet. It would be very simple to rework the page so that the mini character sheet could be removed and replaced with more text for details of the area. Simply put, one would be D&D based while the other would be rule set agnostic.

I find myself naturally doing this as a part of the process of building my campaign. This one city will have 64 blocks or insula, so at a rate of two a month, I have a functional Patreon page for 2.6 years. Possibly more were I to branch out and do other themes, rule sets, etc.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

52 Weeks of Magic - Item 33 - Mortar of Pestilence

The Mortar of Pestilence is a massive variation of the Wondrous Decanter. They stand 6 feet wide and 4 feet tall. The Mortar must be mounted on some sort of pivot. They are often found on castle walls as a defense. They can disgorge 100 gallons of water, like 3 bathtubs full, in one second. This will cause 1d6 points of damage on impact and will push the victim back 1d12 feet for an addition 1d6 points of damage. If the surface struck is a slope, the victim will slide further and possibly take more damage. The target area is about 10 feet by 10 feet.

But what about the Pestilence? One of the first attempts to use the Mortar involved oil. A couple of pours of oil worked correctly, but it was found that water was far cheaper. One of the Mortars was not poured and over time, the oil went rancid. The oil was impossible to light and within minutes everyone with in 120 feet was sickened, including the defenders.

Oil will go bad within an hour when put in the Mortar. The sickness is airborne and will require a saving throw vs. Disease in the first round of pouring for everyone within 10 feet of the Mortar or within the target area at the base of the wall. A failed saving will sicken characters to the point that they will suffer -2 penalty on all ability scores and a -2 to attack. Anyone who enters the target area will need to make a save, even hours later. This effect will be washed away by the next rain or by pouring water on it. 

The mortar can be filled by bucket or by Create Water spells. Usually clerics will have to work in shifts to fill the whole vessel by magic. Buckets are easier than magic and nasty materials can be added to the vessel. Oil is most common, but so is sewage. Any organic material placed within the Mortar will rot and spoil within an hour and causes the disease effect. Aside from water, any substance placed in the Mortar will become so foul it will be unrecognizable and often does not operate as it should. For example, poison will not be a poison on decanting, oil and alcohols will not burn and milk... oh god. Milk!

Pouring acid into the Mortar of Pestilence will demagik the device and it will bubble and spatter out of the container over a period of 100 hours. Everything in the area must make a save as if they were splashed by the acid.

52 Weeks of Magic - Item 32 - Wondrous Decanter

The Wondrous Decanter is often found in churches, temples and shrines. It is a utility item for holding liquids. Occasionally, the very rich will own one for home use.

The Wondrous Decanter will be filled with water when found. It can be refilled. It does not have charges. There are three ways of filling it: the normal way, going to the well or the stream and filling it up; the second way is for a cleric to cast Create Water; or using the Decanter as a part of the create Food and Water spell casting. 

In all cases, the Decanter will accept up to 36 gallons of water. When filling from a stream or lake as opposed to magic, the Decanter will fill to the brim with clean water in one round even if the source was muddy or fouled. It is not a perfect filter, the source liquid must be mostly water. It cannot take water out of another substances. If water is not the major component of the source, the Decanter will not fill.

One of the wonders of the Decanter is, it will not spill a drop. It will dispense 1 cup of water every 3 seconds. The stopper will seal itself if left unattended. This item is a +5 item when making saving throws. It may occur to characters to use it like a water bomb. It is often too hard to break to make this effective. If broken, all 36 gallons will gush out from the fragments over a period of a minute.

The last wonder is more for the sagely, the Decanter acts like a Bag of Holding for water. It is no heavier full than empty. The water contained within also has little momentum so that all 36 gallons can't be dispensed by accident.

These Decanters come in a variety of shapes, styles, and outward sizes.