4 ms·

I played back in the day. I was terrible, insisting on omnipotent characters and unable to accept misfortune. If I were ever to return to play, I would aspire

I played back in the day. I was terrible, insisting on omnipotent characters and unable to accept misfortune. If I were ever to return to play, I would aspire to have disposable characters die glorious deaths and weave an epic tragic tale instead. My brother was much better than me. He was a Dungeon Master. Now he writes fantasy novels.

User23 4y ago
Any that I can buy? One of my favorite novel series is based off a gaming session: the Malazan Book of the Fallen.
- rectang 4y ago
  He's written a few. Damnation Kane, the story of a time-traveling pirate, is my favorite: https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Damnation-Kane-I/dp/1387797670 https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Damnation-Kane-I/dp/138779... > Damnation Kane: Irish pirate captain, born in 1650 to an English Puritan and an Irish druidess. Through means mystical and mysterious, somehow Damnation finds himself, with his ship The Grace of Ireland and his crew of scalawags, in strange seas. His ship damaged by battle and by storm's fury, Captain Kane and his men seek a safe harbor; in the process they make dangerous new enemies, and tensions among the crew worsen. Because they do not know where they are, nor how they came to be there. Is it Hell? An undiscovered country? The land of the Fae? No: it is Florida. In the year 2011. The novel isn't D&D swords and sorcery, but my second favorite scene is fantasy-like, where Kane's druidess mother casts an elaborate spell in a desperate attempt to contact him across the sea and centuries. (My favorite scene is where the pirates invade a Home Depot, and the guy with no thumbs swinging chains attacks a table saw...) D&D definitely played a role in developing his narrative talents. Amazing game.
  - asicsp 4y ago
    Sounds interesting. Time shenanigans is one of the bingo square prompts this year on /r/fantasy, so I wanted to check this one. Any reason why Kindle edition is not available?
    - rectang 4y ago
      > Any reason why Kindle edition is not available? Dunno why it's not on Amazon, but it's available as an eBook on SmashWords in several different formats including mobi (Kindle). https://www.smashwords.com/books/byseries/33132 https://www.smashwords.com/books/byseries/33132 The first 8 chapters can be read for free on the SmashWords web reader: https://www.smashwords.com/extreader/read/823124/1/the-adventures-of-damnation-kane-book-i-out-of-place-and-out https://www.smashwords.com/extreader/read/823124/1/the-adven... > Time shenanigans is one of the bingo square prompts this year on /r/fantasy Oho? The full title is "The Adventures of Damnation Kane Book I: Out of Place and Out of Time". Here's a teaser (the story is mostly told from the perspective of Kane as a ship's log): > But that thing that I saw when we came in sight of the shore! I thought it was a part of the land: the White Cliffs of Dover on the shore of the New World. Until it moved. Until it blew smoke from its back, like the spume of a whale, and sounded a horn that could have drowned out Gabriel’s trumpet, and then it sailed across the bay before us. Against the wind. Against the tide. > It was a hundred feet high, two hundred. Pure white, shining like the clouds in a summer sky. It would have stretched from one end of the village where my mother raised me to the other, and beyond. It was smoking – there was fire on it – fire, the curse of ships, the terror of all sailors. And it sailed through the waves, without sail, without oars. > I looked through my glass and I saw the faces of the men and women aboard. I saw children. They smiled. > I looked at its bow and I saw written there in letters as tall as a man, “GRAND PRINCESS.” > It was a ship. A ship the size of a mountain. > We are in Hell.
      - asicsp 4y ago
        Thanks for the links and teaser. I'll check it out :) Here's the /r/fantasy bingo: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/ttrev1/official_rfantasy_2022_book_bingo_challenge/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/ttrev1/official_rf...
        rectang 4y ago
        "Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey", LOL. Any other D&D-adjacent novels on your bingo board?
- saxelsen 4y ago
  Malazan fan here too! Coincidentally, Erikson and Esslemont are also Canadians like the OP :)
- RobertoG 4y ago
  I think that's the case too for 'The Expanse'. It seems it followed the path role game -> books -> tv show. At the moment of watching the show I didn't realized but, after learning the fact, it was obvious that I had been watching a role campaign.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    And very well written one at that!
  - hnlmorg 4y ago
    There is a new animated series on Amazon Prime Video based on a role playing session too: The Legend of Vox Machina https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Vox_Machina https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Vox_Machina I’d loosely describe it as Final Space set in Middle Earth. Though I found the humour far less forced than in Final Space.
hef19898 4y ago
The principle of having disposable characters is something I like about the new Alien RPG. It definitely helps that the adventures / campaigns are well-written.
- curuinor 4y ago
  the OG disposable-characters RPG is Paranoia. Friend Computer has 6 clones of you in reserve for your messy demise!
sbergot 4y ago
Today D&D 5e is made for powerful fantasy heroes that rarely die and earn XP by killing things. If you aren't aware there is a whole movement called "osr" which put more emphasis on finding treasure in very dangerous situations. There is even a game called Dungeon Crawl Classic that suggest doing a "funnel" to create new characters: each player starts with 3/4 weak characters. At the end of the dungeon you pick your official character among the survivor. Osr authors have produced many wonderful books. Definitely worth checking out. So games like OSE are carbon copies of older games. Other like knave try to modernise and streamline things while keeping the spirit.
- YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
  It's a bit complicated what OSR is about and to be honest I'm very confused about it. There seem to be two categories of OSR games, as far as I can tell. One is a category of games that are more or less faithful reproductions of some pre-3.0 edition of D&D rules, without any setting information. This is possible apparently because of an (untested?) understanding that rules cannot be copyrighted. Most of those games are free downloads. Just the ones I have on my drive: OSRIC (Old School Reference and Index Compilation) Dark Dungeon (2nd ed. D&D?) Labyrinth Lord (1st ed) Old School Essentials Swords and Wizzardry Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland (1st ed. BX) Lamentations of the Flame Princess Lightmaster Dungeon Crawl Classics Some or all of those games are referred to as "retro-clones". As far as I've read up, DCC and Lightmaster seem to be the ones that depart the farthest from the original rulesets. The other category is a category of rules-light, low-effort games that are often no more than a commentary on D&D and TT-RPGs in general, sometimes in zine format. I don't want to give too many examples of those because my description probably sounds disparaging enough, but see this link for some such games (or "games"): https://liberludorum.com/2021/03/29/sword-satire/ https://liberludorum.com/2021/03/29/sword-satire/ And I'm probably missing a few categories of OSR games. For instance, The Black Hack, Rogue, Troika and Into the Electric Bastionland seem to be OSR, but I haven't had the chance to read them and figure out what they're about. Anycase, the OSR movement seems to have started around the time of this essay: "A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming" https://archive.org/details/a-quick-primer-for-old-school-gaming/A%20Quick%20Primer%20for%20Old%20School%20Gaming/ https://archive.org/details/a-quick-primer-for-old-school-ga... If anyone understands what OSR is, or means, better than I do, please help because I'm just confused. I don't even know what the comonly accepted definition of the "OSR" acronym is supposed to be (or if one exists even).

User23 4y ago

Any that I can buy? One of my favorite novel series is based off a gaming session: the Malazan Book of the Fallen.

rectang 4y ago
He's written a few. Damnation Kane, the story of a time-traveling pirate, is my favorite: https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Damnation-Kane-I/dp/1387797670 https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Damnation-Kane-I/dp/138779... > Damnation Kane: Irish pirate captain, born in 1650 to an English Puritan and an Irish druidess. Through means mystical and mysterious, somehow Damnation finds himself, with his ship The Grace of Ireland and his crew of scalawags, in strange seas. His ship damaged by battle and by storm's fury, Captain Kane and his men seek a safe harbor; in the process they make dangerous new enemies, and tensions among the crew worsen. Because they do not know where they are, nor how they came to be there. Is it Hell? An undiscovered country? The land of the Fae? No: it is Florida. In the year 2011. The novel isn't D&D swords and sorcery, but my second favorite scene is fantasy-like, where Kane's druidess mother casts an elaborate spell in a desperate attempt to contact him across the sea and centuries. (My favorite scene is where the pirates invade a Home Depot, and the guy with no thumbs swinging chains attacks a table saw...) D&D definitely played a role in developing his narrative talents. Amazing game.
- asicsp 4y ago
  Sounds interesting. Time shenanigans is one of the bingo square prompts this year on /r/fantasy, so I wanted to check this one. Any reason why Kindle edition is not available?
  - rectang 4y ago
    > Any reason why Kindle edition is not available? Dunno why it's not on Amazon, but it's available as an eBook on SmashWords in several different formats including mobi (Kindle). https://www.smashwords.com/books/byseries/33132 https://www.smashwords.com/books/byseries/33132 The first 8 chapters can be read for free on the SmashWords web reader: https://www.smashwords.com/extreader/read/823124/1/the-adventures-of-damnation-kane-book-i-out-of-place-and-out https://www.smashwords.com/extreader/read/823124/1/the-adven... > Time shenanigans is one of the bingo square prompts this year on /r/fantasy Oho? The full title is "The Adventures of Damnation Kane Book I: Out of Place and Out of Time". Here's a teaser (the story is mostly told from the perspective of Kane as a ship's log): > But that thing that I saw when we came in sight of the shore! I thought it was a part of the land: the White Cliffs of Dover on the shore of the New World. Until it moved. Until it blew smoke from its back, like the spume of a whale, and sounded a horn that could have drowned out Gabriel’s trumpet, and then it sailed across the bay before us. Against the wind. Against the tide. > It was a hundred feet high, two hundred. Pure white, shining like the clouds in a summer sky. It would have stretched from one end of the village where my mother raised me to the other, and beyond. It was smoking – there was fire on it – fire, the curse of ships, the terror of all sailors. And it sailed through the waves, without sail, without oars. > I looked through my glass and I saw the faces of the men and women aboard. I saw children. They smiled. > I looked at its bow and I saw written there in letters as tall as a man, “GRAND PRINCESS.” > It was a ship. A ship the size of a mountain. > We are in Hell.
    - asicsp 4y ago
      Thanks for the links and teaser. I'll check it out :) Here's the /r/fantasy bingo: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/ttrev1/official_rfantasy_2022_book_bingo_challenge/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/ttrev1/official_rf...
      - rectang 4y ago
        "Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey", LOL. Any other D&D-adjacent novels on your bingo board?
saxelsen 4y ago
Malazan fan here too! Coincidentally, Erikson and Esslemont are also Canadians like the OP :)
RobertoG 4y ago
I think that's the case too for 'The Expanse'. It seems it followed the path role game -> books -> tv show. At the moment of watching the show I didn't realized but, after learning the fact, it was obvious that I had been watching a role campaign.
- hef19898 4y ago
  And very well written one at that!
- hnlmorg 4y ago
  There is a new animated series on Amazon Prime Video based on a role playing session too: The Legend of Vox Machina https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Vox_Machina https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Vox_Machina I’d loosely describe it as Final Space set in Middle Earth. Though I found the humour far less forced than in Final Space.

hef19898 4y ago

The principle of having disposable characters is something I like about the new Alien RPG. It definitely helps that the adventures / campaigns are well-written.

curuinor 4y ago
the OG disposable-characters RPG is Paranoia. Friend Computer has 6 clones of you in reserve for your messy demise!

sbergot 4y ago

Today D&D 5e is made for powerful fantasy heroes that rarely die and earn XP by killing things. If you aren't aware there is a whole movement called "osr" which put more emphasis on finding treasure in very dangerous situations. There is even a game called Dungeon Crawl Classic that suggest doing a "funnel" to create new characters: each player starts with 3/4 weak characters. At the end of the dungeon you pick your official character among the survivor. Osr authors have produced many wonderful books. Definitely worth checking out. So games like OSE are carbon copies of older games. Other like knave try to modernise and streamline things while keeping the spirit.

YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
It's a bit complicated what OSR is about and to be honest I'm very confused about it. There seem to be two categories of OSR games, as far as I can tell. One is a category of games that are more or less faithful reproductions of some pre-3.0 edition of D&D rules, without any setting information. This is possible apparently because of an (untested?) understanding that rules cannot be copyrighted. Most of those games are free downloads. Just the ones I have on my drive: OSRIC (Old School Reference and Index Compilation) Dark Dungeon (2nd ed. D&D?) Labyrinth Lord (1st ed) Old School Essentials Swords and Wizzardry Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland (1st ed. BX) Lamentations of the Flame Princess Lightmaster Dungeon Crawl Classics Some or all of those games are referred to as "retro-clones". As far as I've read up, DCC and Lightmaster seem to be the ones that depart the farthest from the original rulesets. The other category is a category of rules-light, low-effort games that are often no more than a commentary on D&D and TT-RPGs in general, sometimes in zine format. I don't want to give too many examples of those because my description probably sounds disparaging enough, but see this link for some such games (or "games"): https://liberludorum.com/2021/03/29/sword-satire/ https://liberludorum.com/2021/03/29/sword-satire/ And I'm probably missing a few categories of OSR games. For instance, The Black Hack, Rogue, Troika and Into the Electric Bastionland seem to be OSR, but I haven't had the chance to read them and figure out what they're about. Anycase, the OSR movement seems to have started around the time of this essay: "A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming" https://archive.org/details/a-quick-primer-for-old-school-gaming/A%20Quick%20Primer%20for%20Old%20School%20Gaming/ https://archive.org/details/a-quick-primer-for-old-school-ga... If anyone understands what OSR is, or means, better than I do, please help because I'm just confused. I don't even know what the comonly accepted definition of the "OSR" acronym is supposed to be (or if one exists even).