#RPGaDay2026 - Day 23 - "Fortune"

 Day 23 of #RPGaDay and the prompt "Fortune" make me immediately go back to the series of D&D boxed sets.

Perhaps it was the expected rapid levelling, maybe it was just a different economy, but all levels of BECMI D&D seemed to have fat stacks of gold everywhere.  It seemed like there was a lot to save up to, and once you got into Expert, the concept of "Name Level" where it was expected to building strongholds, castles, temples and towers and start ruling.  Noble titles were horribly designed, but structurally, where one could break down realms into handy standardized hexes on a map, it made sense.   (Example: A Viscount needed to rule multiple baronies, with at least barony having a Baron pledged fealty to him... He couldn't upgrade to a Count unless he actually conquered someone else's territory.  Weird but logical - Rule Cyclopedia, page 135)

In that same structure, building your stronghold was better organized that in AD&D.  Perhaps it was just the age, but we designed the castles, calculated the cost, and all that work was reasonable. 

Plus, the concept of having not henchmen, not hirelings, but actually levying troops was completely satisfying. 

Better yet, D&D offered better dominion administration, and a whole ongoing system of dominion check and dominion confidence to keep a Name-Level adventurer on his toes. 

And just an FYI, for those wishing to house me... the anticipated expenditure to keep a Viscount entertained is 150gp per day.  

Alternative Question: An enjoyable moment of good or bad fortune? 

#RPGaDay2026 - Day 22 - "Grit"

Day 22 of #RPGaDay and my old college roommate, Steve continues an extensive influence on my posts, even showing a bit of "Grit" by giving me a story that wasn't even my game!  

In college, I had one game, possibly THE game for the dorms that surrounded the quad.  Saturday nights were for AD&D 2nd Edition, my then 10-year old "World of Georic" campaign.  As games on other nights of the week grew from that, my players now acting as GMs borrowed much of the information I was willing to share and turned it into their own, especially the Prinicipalities (sometimes Kingdom) of Emron. 

My college roommate Steve was in one of the offshoot games, this one run by our dorm neighbor Nate, aka TOWN (The Other White Nate).   With his history of odd characters in campaigns, past, present, and certainly future, it was a shock to the system of all to find out he was playing Benverho.

Benverho was a classic magic-user.  Now, he was a craven, manipulative, and selfish character, but he was the most "normal" character in a group that had weird cast-offs from my game, and a character named Beer-Nut. 

Benverho seemed poised early one to acquire knowledge by using people, and a healthy use of meat shields between him and the bad guys, and to be fair that continued for the length of the campaign, despite certain softenings of his stance. 

But sometime around 2nd level, the party was in an ultimate low-level bind, and Benverho found himself in a keep, face-to-face with a man-at-arms with a crossbow pointed at him.  

Steve: How much does a crossbow do? 

TOWN:  1d4 points of damage.

Steve: I like my odds.

He then proceeded to step forward at the crossbowman with a Shocking Grasp. 

The crossbow bolt whizzed past his AC 9 ear.

The Shocking Grasp killed the guard.

The room was stunned that he did not die, as was all the rage that session.

And despite months of campaign play afterwards, that might have been Benverho's only gritty combat moment.

Produced by Gemini

Alternative Question: An enjoyable moment of grit PCs did or did not tough out

#RPGaDAy2026 - Day 21 - "Charity"

 It's the end of the third week, Day 21 for #RPGaDay, and we're looking at "Charity."

Another suggestion from the Monday night group, "You were really charitable not killing off Ozark on day one..."

Following the accidental death of one of the chosen ones, Echelon.  I waited with baited breath for Steve's replacement character.  He came back with a banger of a Max-Min character (yes the I flipped the term). 

What could go wrong?

• Half-Orc
• Cleric of a Minor but normal deity
• Freaky Old "Venerable"

A healthier version of Ozark... or Yoda's older brother.

Ozark was going to be a 75 year old Half-Orc old-man cleric.   Referencing what I had (no half orcs in 2nd Edition, so half-orcs in 1st Edition cap at 4th level, already two levels  below the group. 

He was the spoiler, slowing down the group, criticizing the food, rapping the amorous bard on the head for loose morals with the ladies.  He hurt his fellow adventurers more for loose morals than damaging monsters.

And the sonuvabitch just wouldn't die... 

He played it so well, everyone hated Ozark so much, that I killed him off in White Plume Mountain and made a dramatic return of a wiser, more enlightened Echelon in the fight with the gargantuan crab.  

Alternative Question: Share an RPG charity past or present that moved you?

#RPGaDay2026 - Day 20 - "Promise"

Day 20 of #RPGaDay and I expected "Promise" to be a fun topic for discussion at our last Monday night game session.

I was horribly wrong, 

Surprise, surprise, my old college roommate Steve once again a steered a concept into ruins, which is exactly what we're talking about today.

Sometime in the late 2000s/early 2010s one of my foci was variants of the reverse dungeon: here you play as the monsters in the dungeon, in the defense of your home against the evil encroaching adventurers

I quickly diverted from the normal staple of dungeon defense and really started to use some other classic material to reverse engineer concepts. 

Being part of the gangs elements in B6: The Veiled Society.

Being the mostly drugged up citizens in B4: The Lost City.

I even managed to run a campaign in the last few years based in Gulluvia, the land labeled in the original B3: Palace of the Silver Princess. 

The only one I plotted out and failed horribly. I was doing the Lost Valley out of B10: Nights Dark Terror.

On a quiet weekend nearly twenty years ago, I ventured down to my friend Scott, and then-wife Kelley's house in Allentown and commandeered the dining room table with our extended group to play a few game.  My goal was to play basic D&D, testing the limits of a meat grinder, testing out rules for the subjugated Traldar and the ruling Hukataan race: simply two different types of people encountering the evil that was seeping throughout the valley.  

We never really got to the hook of the evil... or even play the Hukataan.  The short, squat, bald Traldar picture created some basic biases.

I think the Traldar slaves average Intelligence in the 7-10 range, but the group started with simple names and embraced the rabbit hole whole heartedly.    They played them ridiculously dumb to the point where the replacement characters all had rhyming name: Og, Dog, Hog, Zogg, etc...

I was quietly peeved, but I also need to know my players better and I did let it happen... for hours...

They failed horribly and by the time I drove home, I put the plans on the back-back burner.

The only quote Steve remembered was me calling a bathroom break with the quip, "There's nothing in the rules or background that say you have to play this way...."

I wasn't able to regroup during my bathroom exile, and just embrace the players having fun... I know the last time I moved I found the Traldar character sheets... and promptly recycled them. 

Alternate Question: Have the characters kept or broken more promises?

#RPGaDay2026 - Day 19 - "Desire"

Day 19 of #RPGaDay and I had a few moments putting together stories about "Desire" of any sort.  

Then I let it out for my Monday night players, and the floodgates open.  

I've got to admit, I'm guilty of running moments of ficus passion, as in the journal entry at the end of the Adam Sandler version of Mr Deeds: 

Consuela:
Want me to wipe the leaves on your ficus tree, Mr. Blake?

Blake:
You can call me Preston.

Consuela:
Want me to wipe the leaves on your ficus tree, Preston?

Blake:
Yes. Yes! YES!

[they embrace wildly]

Oh it's cheesy, it quicks, and luckily the players have put in enough effort in the PCs relationships that a shirtless dwarf shining in sweat staring at the large German housekeeper washing dishes at the Chateau elicits the biting of her lip, some over the top conversation and actions that rival a telenovella.

Our Star Wars pilot Tarrie Prolek was known as a notorious womanizer, yet as the game progressed, his type was revealed to be older women, bartenders and waitresses, the he returned to accommodate his personal needs, but a sense of loneliness pulling at his soul.  

And then... there are the worms.  Their underground scene during Fair-Town Queen's Joust is legendary.  

Of course my roommate Steve would want to play a six-foot tall mutant earthworm in Gamma World.  Even after growing a shaggy white coat of fur...  he searched for more of his kind.

I had him meet on of his kind, we researched a lot about earthworm reproduction, and Squiggles quickly learned he was pregnant (must have been the mammalian fur that changed things). 

On the return trip to the Queen's Joust, he hooked up with his worm ladyfriend, got pregnant, and discovered  the actual underground lifestyle of all types of mutant worms.  We stopped at the joke about a bait cooler of "wringling masses, not needing to go into further details. 

A huge risk taken because of desire?

#RPGaDay2026 - Day 18 - "Directness"

 Day 18 of #RPGaDay and the alternate question was one of the easiest to choose.

"A fast introduction of a new PC or player?"

The smoothest introduction of a new character was bringing Hoyce's Duk'k the Bounty Hunter into play almost running

We've been bugging our friend Hoyce to join the group since we were originally playing 5e online.  Around a year into our Star Wars d6 game, he finally had availability and a fun character concept.  A Sipsk'ud Bounty Hunter patterned after Dog: The Bounty Hunter.

Weird, rough around the edges, and quietly confident?  He hit all the core demographics of the group. I even targeted him as the unknown victim to be rescued.  They got him his bounty hunter armor and weapons and they escaped with elan. 

Duk'k's arrival helped change the focus of the games into competency with a healthy dash of jealousy.

Alternate Question: A fast introduction of a new PC or player?

#RPGaDay2026 - Day 17 - "Intensity"

 Day 17 and the prompt is "Intensity" 

By far, the most intense session in recent memory was a fill-in session one Monday night, where we played Magical Kitties Save the Day.  

No, I'm not joking.

Creating the kitties was a piece of cake, and surprisingly inventive in the backgrounds, for a bunch of old wargamers.  

For a game of role-playing, investigation, and overcoming human odds while being magical kitties. I may have brought a sledgehammer to nano-surgery.  

I never had the experience of introducing stereotypical D&D min-maxers to Call of Cthulhu, but the apparent frontal assault the kitties took on to help one of their humans with a small crew of (allegedly) Italian neighborhood goons definitely gets an honorable mention. 

We will return to the game one day, with new cats, new backgrounds, new adventures, and perhaps some small children to remind adults how cats are supposed to act. 

Alternate Question:  A satisfying example of a character’s integrity