Category Archives: Tips and Tricks

Tips and Tricks

Truly Modular Doors for the Tabletop! — MM 48

It’s Mini Monday, and this week we’re making truly modular doors for tabletop gaming!

Really Modular vs Almost Modular

There are plenty of great dungeon tile terrain sets out there that have “modular” written somewhere on the box, but which usually only fits with sets from the same manufacturer. Special clips and connectors become a problem if you enjoy making your own terrain or want to buy sets from another company and have it all sit seamlessly together on the tabletop. Turns out though that making modular terrain that’ll fit with any other terrain isn’t all that hard at all.

It just needs some planning.

My ideas about modular terrain changed when I saw Johnny Fraser-Allen’s tabletop terrain, which is modular because it stacks. Gravity, not pins, do all the work.

Take a look, Johnny’s work is very inspiring:

Truly Modular Doors

Here’s a hobbit door, a trapdoor, and a sewer grate:

I used plastic card, clay, and matchsticks to build these, with a small eye crew for the door handle of the hobbit door. There’s not really that much to them, and they only took a couple of hours to bang out and paint.

But check how useful they are:

“Well, this looks unsafe. What if little Timmy were around?”
“… Much better!”
From inside the well: “Mwfff mff mmfff.”
Any of these pieces of terrain could work here. The castle floor doesn’t have any features of its own.
“Oi, hobbit, let me in! I know you’re in there.”

As you can see in this last picture, a bit of Prestik (Blu Tack) will get you a vertical door and some burglar bars. No special connectors needed.

The Perfect Fit, Anywhere

I really appreciate this sort of modularity when I’m building dungeons on the fly, such as when I’m playing with a dungeon to get inspired for a session or some module writing.

And if you think about it, you can apply this principle to so many other types of terrain too.

The Gear Heart of the Mechamancer

We recently released the Mechamancer, a cybernetic reimagining of the barbarian for fifth edition fantasy. You can check it out on Drive Thru RPG. If you already own the Grimdark Pamphlet then you’ll be getting the mechamancer, for free, in a future update of the pamphlet.

Write - Design - Program

Let’s Write Some Statistically Average Jokes

The AGBIC game jam is fast drawing to a close, and I need to put some statistically average fake band names into the game, because that’s the entirely optional theme for the year, which means we’re doing it! Time for some statistically average jokes!

Like our bad space-themed jokes, these band names will be connected to items you find on the red planet, and we’ll try our best to be funny.

Or at least punny.

Pun and Games

Here are the newest additions. The words in bold are the statistically average band names:

  • You pick up a bottle of lactate- concentrate. The label reads ‘Moo Gourd, rich in Calcium, the other Vitamine C’.
  • You discover a crumpled copy of Football Scoundrel. The cover story reads ‘Tottenbacon’s Runaway Season’.
  • You find a stash of rolled-up Flamboyant Lifer magazines. Rich humans sure know how to live.
  • You pick a thin cardboard sleeve out of the dirt. It appears to contain an audio recording of the Ferry Destroyers. By the picture on the cover, it seems they dislike barbers as much as crossing channels.
  • You find a dusty magazine entitled Apes Spanks. Thinking it better not to ask, you quickly atomize it for parts.
  • You find a jar of Nut Rebuild, but it’s empty.
  • You find a card depicting a gloomy castle. It has Strength 10, Vitality 12, and Endurance 17. Apparently, you’d need more of these to play Fortification Addict.

    • You recover a copy of Dunk Racket from the dirt. This audio-visual ‘comedy phenomenon’ stars Wes Haroldson and Woopy Pipes.
    • You pull a small, hair-covered jacket from the dirt. It appears made for an Earth-pet and the label says Ensemble Basset in Earth-glyphs.
    • A newspaper clipping lies in the dirt. It reads ‘Naturalization Loan Rollout Begins’.
    • You find a pamphlet for ‘Safari Ski Holidays in South Africa’. The tigers really look like they’re enjoying the hot cocoa. The sales blurb promises ‘Extravagant Thrills‘.
    • You pick up a postcard depicting a human male and female riding in an expensive-looking air vehicle. It says ‘the all-new Clove Beamer is a ride of a lifetime.’
    • You pick up a well-worn issue of ‘Impostor Smut‘ from the dust. Humans are into some weird things.
    • You find a small plastic card labeled ‘Hedonist Credit, redeemable in stores nationwide’.

Well, that was utterly ridiculous. I hope you’ll us for more, soon.


Tips and Tricks

Is This the Best Way to Build RPG Dungeons?

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There are tons of ways to build dungeons for your sessions of Dungeons & Dragons, from randomly generated maps to complicated computer software, but this method might just be the best way to build RPG dungeons you’ll ever find.

I’m a visual, hands-on kind of guy. I love playing with LEGO, painting miniatures, and kitbashing. It’s my meditative place, where I’m not deeply inside my head or thinking about anything particular, just enjoying the flow of the moment.

There’s a practical side to this too, one which overcomes the limitations of a computer.

I do my best writing on paper. Even though it takes time to type up my scrawl afterwards, I don’t see it as wasted time, because my writing is that much better when the first draft is analogue.

There’s something about the real feeling of things, about being able to scratch, tweak, modify, and scribble, without keys interfering.

That’s why I like building out my dungeons with bits of homemade scenery.

“Just what kind of dungeon is this?”

The Process

I’ve made lots of terrain for my wargaming, much of which I’ve shown in the Mini Monday archives. This took me a fairly long time to collect, but now that I have it I find that it inspires all sorts of ideas, just from playing with the pieces.

The dungeon, in effect, has become a toy, and building the dungeon is the game.

You can do the same thing with dungeon tiles, or with a pencil and post-it notes. You could even use LEGO, or use books to represent rooms, anything you can easily move around and change.

The physical, impermanent nature of your tool is important.

Things to Think About

What will make this dungeon, or this room, this trap, this encounter, more interesting? How do these rooms relate to each other? How else can the players achieve what they need to achieve here? What reasons do they have to go into this room, interact with this object, talk to this NPC?

Think about these things as you shift walls and doors, add furniture and traps, or put down monster minis for each encounter.

And then, when you’re finally happy with things, draw out your map, or go to the mapping software. I promise, you’ll have better ideas to work with than if you jumped straight into making the map.

RPG Blog Carnival

This month’s RPG Blog Carnival is hosted by Plastic Polyhedra, who picked the theme “Let’s Build a Dungeon!” Be sure to check out their site and the linked post for more dungeon design ideas.

Write - Design - Program

Convert a String to a Variable Name in JavaScript

Is it possible to write code that doesn’t use its own variables, but still works? It is! You can convert a string to a variable name in JavaScript using eval, and here’s how it works.

Our Usecase

Say we’re building a text-based game where we want the player to be able to interact with the resources they’ve collected. In Mars and Crafts, this means typing “atomize [resource name]” into Discord and hitting enter. For example: “atomize dirt” or “atomize concrete”.

There are potentially many variables we’ll need to access, but the is giving us the name of the most important variable in their input string. So, rather than using many “if-else” statements, can’t we just use the input string to get the variable?

Convert a JS String into a Variable Name

This node.js code loads data from a JSON file into variables, then uses eval to access them with a string. This is useful because the can type in the variable’s name and get its value, all we need to do is ensure their string is formatted correctly. 
// Load Game
const fileSystem = require("fs");
const saveData = fileSystem.readFileSync("saveData.json", "utf-8");
const saveObj = JSON.parse(saveData);
console.log("Loaded save game.......");

//Resources
var iStone = saveObj.iStone;
var iWater = saveObj.iWater;
var iSludge = saveObj.iSludge;
var iParts = saveObj.iParts;
var iElectronics = saveObj.iElectronics;
var iFuel = saveObj.iFuel;
var iPower = saveObj.iPower;
var iMetal = saveObj.iMetal;
var iConcrete = saveObj.iConcrete;
var iDirt = saveObj.iDirt;

function atomize (arg) {
    // Convert arg string to resource variable name
    arg = arg.toLowerCase();
    var sResPrefix = "i" + arg.charAt(0).toUpperCase(); 
    var sResource =  sResPrefix + arg.substr(1, arg.length);
    console.log(arg + " => " + sResource + " = " + eval(sResource)); 
}

// Some tests
atomize ("dirt");
atomize ("Water");
atomize ("CONCRETE");
atomize ("Stone");
atomize ("sludge");
atomize ("FUEL");

We can figure out which variable the wants with some educated guesses. In this case, we know our variables all start with “i” and a capital letter. We then do a fair bit of work with the strings, which we could skip if the variable names were simply the nouns (“sludge”, “water”, “stone”, etc.).

Here’s the saveData.json file:

{
"iStone":3,
"iDirt":2,
"iWater":0,
"iSludge":0,
"iParts":0,
"iElectronics":0,
"iFuel":0,
"iPower":0,
"iMetal":0,
"iConcrete":0
}

Some Security Considerations

Using eval is like opening a back door for all kinds of deviancy, which is why you’ll still need to restrict which variables are accessible and ensure that only those variables are accessible. Read and understand the eval docs, and let us know if you have a better way of doing this, in the comments below.



Write - Design - Program

Why It’s Good to Suck (At Something)

I suck at skateboarding. I’m terrible at it. But you know what, it’s good to suck at something. Here’s why…

(And yes, there will be an RPG angle to my story.)

There are a bunch of things I can get cocky about. I’m not bragging though, because I still have far to go, but I’m a fairly competent writer and editor, I know a deal about design and layout, and my puns are perfection. When it comes to skateboarding though, I suck.

Just how bad am I?

I’m a fearful person, and I’ve got the coords of a drunken goat. I nearly killed myself for a stupid trick (that’s hyperbole, but it still hurt).

But all the suckage is a good thing. It keeps you humble. It teaches you. It gives you perspective.

Humility and Real Motivation

So we’re going to talk about game design a lot here, and we’re going to talk about motivation too. Motivation’s the fuel that gets game design done, that pulls game devs through the tough times.

Motivation fascinates me.

People say our minds are like a computer, so then understanding motivation is like learning to hack our brains. That’s tastily cyberpunk.

But the motivation I’m talking about isn’t the Tony Robbin’s flavored shlock you find in a lot of self-help books. I’m talking about understanding what makes your brain think like it does, then knowing how to deal with those thoughts.

In skateboarding, sometimes the most unnatural movements are the right ones. Take dropping in.

Credit: Tania Ferreira Lourenco

Dropping in is where you have your skateboard’s nose up, then lean forward so that you and your board’s nose come down, onto the ramp. Your body’s natural instinct is to pull back, but this always fouls up and could put you on your bum. Ultimately, you have to trust the physics and lean into it, fighting through the fear.

You quickly realize that fear’s keeping you back. The only way to hack your brain is to fight the fear. So how do you fight fear?

School of Hard Knocks

We all know how to run, but riding a plank, that’s odd. You might be lucky to have learned it as a kid, but otherwise it’s an alien activity. In this way, skateboarding is a perfect model for how we learn.

I see it when I compare mini painting to skateboarding. Both take practice, and practice pays off for both hobbies. The best synonym for practice is “baby steps”. You learn to master mini painting by focusing on one new step at a time.

Gamemastering? Same. Writing games? Same. Nobody ever learned all the rules of D&D before running their first game, they learn enough and add to that knowledge later.

Knowing you suck is the only way to improve.

Write - Design - Program

Why I Almost Quit the TTRPG Industry

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The table-top roleplaying games industry is notoriously tough. Keep your ear to the ground and you’ll hear, now and then, the hasty footfalls of an RPG designer rushing for the door. Burnout is usually the cause. I was at the edge of that precipice, and I almost quit the TTRPG industry, and I’m here to tell you my story.

I’ve worked in the TTRPG industry for five full years now. Some of my time is spent on other work, but I’ve picked jobs carefully to build my career with experience that’ll feed back into RPG design and writing. These years were only possible because of another five years spent preparing to go full time. So why, if I’ve fought so hard for this, would I be ready to let it all go?

An Honest Picture of Success

To understand that, we need to talk about success. What does success in the TTRPG industry look like? Is it working for Wizards of the Coast, or having your name on a hardcover? Maybe it’s earning enough that you can quit your day job?

In my view, success is all about sustainability. Does your work you? This isn’t just about money, although money is a big part of it. Sustainability includes the actualization of your goals. It answers questions such as “Will I, one day, have my name on a hardcover?” Your sense of worth is also important; “Do I make great content that people enjoy?” Then there’s fair remuneration; “Is my hard work being adequately rewarded?” Rewards include money, buzz, positive , and players sitting down to play your games.

Ultimately, is all the graft, the grind, and the stress, paying off? If it is, then your work is sustainable and you’re successful. If not, then the job will eventually beat you down, you’ll cut your losses, and beat an expeditious retreat.

Hard trials are going to come along, no matter what you do. If anything, I didn’t always have the maturity to face those trials and pull through, so each hit became a personal burden (or grudge) that grew heavier and heavier with each setback. On top of that, as Freddie sang, “… bad mistakes, I’ve made a few.” This reached its ugly head when I had a run of flops with products I really believed in.

It has taken me months to recover from burnout and get excited about producing RPG content again.

But I’m committed to learning from my mistakes and doing better.

How much better to get wisdom than gold,
to get insight rather than silver!
— Proverbs 16:16

Last night I was reading a Batonga story to my kids about the dung beetle. In it, Butterfly tells Dung Beetle that if she doesn’t try, she’ll never succeed, but if she tries, she might (When Lion Could Fly and Other Tales From Africa).

So I’m sticking around because I know I can do better. Even after five years, there’s still so much to learn, and I’m enjoying being a student of game design and the TTRPG industry. Even my many failures are not a loss, because they give me something to build on that I didn’t have when I first started out.

The name of the company makes a lot more sense now too, doesn’t it? I hope you, too, can rise like a phoenix from whatever setback life has thrown at you.


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Let’s Write Space Jokes for a Game!

It’s Game Jam Friday, so that means I really should be working on my little game. Why don’t you me…

This month we’re making Mars and Crafts, a game about mining Mars to build Martian defenses against the oncoming human invasion. Part of this will involve tentacles. Another part will involve lots and lots of digging in the red Martian dirt.

Every now and then, you’ll discover random junk, much like if you were beachcombing. This junk gives you machine parts (which can be used to build things) and also tells the game’s story. When is the game set, how do the aliens you play perceive humanity,  what happens when you build war machines out of dirt and goo? That sort of thing.

It also needs to be funny, because life’s too short to forget about the lols. We’ll hit the space jokes pretty hard, and throw in plenty of references to popular media.

So let’s write some.

“Very funny, Scotty.”

  • You pick at the end of a piece of thread. As you pull, more thread rises from the Martian sand. Keep this up and you’ll unravel the whole thing.
  • You pick up a strange toy that resembles a human. Oddly, its head is far bigger than a real human’s head is purported to be, though its vacant stare implies it isn’t very clever. Maybe the humans worship dumb people who look smart?

Captain Kirk Naked - Space Jokes

  • You discover a gold and black spandex suit with a golden badge pinned to it. It looks like it might fit the human’s odd physiology.
  • You pick up a flat, shiny hexagon. Analysis reveals that it was part of a solar array. Anyway, it’ll look great hanging from your flying saucer’s rearview mirror.
  • Your UMT (Universal Mining Tool) detects something below the dust’s surface. You dig a little and uncover a polyhedral structure with numbers on it. Obviously, this is some kind of portent.
  • You find pile of magnetically attached needles. Your UMT detects a grass-like structure inside.
  • You pick up a tiny marble. It looks like it contains an entire galaxy within. Probably just a trick of the light.
  • You pick up two pie-pans that have been glued together.
  • You find a large black obalisk stuck in the sand. There are no markings on it, but if you vaporize it at least you’ll get more dirt and a single sproket.
  • You discover a glove of a prepubescent five-flanged tentaculared cepholopodian. Those guys never pick up their trash.
  • Looks like someone’s been playing EDM recently, dropped beats litter the place.
  • You recover what appears to be… a toaster.
  • Oh look, you’ve found a skull and gear symbol made of a metallic plastic. It seems ominously foreboding.
  • You pick up a paper cup. It says “Starbucks” in Earth-glyphs on the side, but you’re unsure where you can spend this space currency.
  • You pick up a bubblegum wrapper. It contains a joke, written in Earth-glyphs. Something about why the star wanted to take a vacation, because it needed some space. Earth humor, go figure!
  • You pick up a broken toy rocket. Its faded paint is red and white.
  • You find a newspaper clipping. The Earth-glyphs read ‘Oil Discovered on Mars. In unrelated news, America Plans Trip to Mars, Packs Oil Rig.’

Your Space Jokes Can Help

Have some ideas of your own? Got some space jokes you’d love to share? Drop them into the comments with your name and I’ll add you to the game’s credits. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter too, because I’ll throw some news about the game up soonish.


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Make a Wargame Ep 6 – Design Polish – MM 47

It’s Mini Monday, where we inspire your roleplaying and tabletop gaming with miniature projects. This week we’re looking at some design polish as we finish our game, Dagger Lords. Our game is basically done, but it’s missing all the bells and whistles that’ll make it a complete, marketable game. In case you missed out on what we’ve done so far, you can find the complete episode list here:

Episode 1: Concept and Theme
Episode 2: Initiative and Turns
Episode 3: Movement
Episode 4: Combat
Episode 5: Powers and Playtesting
Episode 6: Polishing the Game

We’re updating the public Dagger Lords game document as we go, so be sure to check in and see what we have so far. Don’t forget to leave a comment too, we love hearing from actual, living breathing humans.

Handling Scope Creep

Our game is at that critical point where there’s the temptation to add features. Then some more features. Then a few more…

You see where this is going.

Ultimately, we need an idea of what “done” will look like, so we can evaluate the game against that idea.

So what does a complete miniatures skirmish wargame need? Here are some ideas, and it’s probably not a complete list:

  1. Mechanics for activation, movement, combat, and shooting
  2. Rules for terrain
  3. Races/heritages (elves, goblins, dwarves, drow, humans, halflings, orcs, and so on.)
  4. Mechanics for weapons
  5. Equipment list (listing dice, miniatures, tape measures, terrain or maps, and other necessary gaming gear)
  6. Magic system and spells
  7. Powers

There are a bunch of “nice-to-haves” we might consider too:

  1. Solo rules
  2. Campaign rules
  3. Missions
  4. Rules for larger models
  5. Setting lore, to further sell the idea of the campaign world
  6. Hero profiles

Your own game might prioritize some elements over others, and you could certainly argue for moving things between the two lists. The point is that “done” is going to depend on your vision of the game, so a solid vision is important.

Once you have a plan, you’ll need to stick to it too, unless you have a very good reason for adding something. For me, solo gaming is important, it’s even a core part of our business, but we might have to exclude a solo system from Dagger Lords if we just can’t get it to work. Plans have to adapt, but you have to consider those changes carefully and understand their ramifications.

Rules With Flavour

Rules by themselves are pretty boring, so another thing we’ll want to do is add some appealing flavour text to things like spells and powers.

Consider this power:

By itself, not very interesting. Here’s one idea:

The words we choose are what’ll sell the concept of the game, so we’re looking for short, evocative sentences for powers. The game can include longer-form fluff too, as you’ve probably seen in some of the games you’ve played.

Reusing Rules

You might have bits you can reuse from other games you’ve worked on. For today’s post I added Breaking Eggs, a solo mission I’d written up for another game. It took a little bit of tweaking, but now it’s in Dagger Lords. Reusing rules is especially great for building out new prototypes.

Where to Next

Game design is iterative, so even though Dagger Lords is complete, it’s not nearly done. In a way, the real work is just beginning. We do, however, have something to playtest, and that’s important.

When it is ready, a game like this would go from final draft to editing, then final manuscript, layout, and then a final proof. These may have different names, but essentially the game’s text is check, re-checked, and then checked again in various forms until you end up with a pretty document, all ready for printing.

Then there’s marketing and all the other business activities that go with selling a game, but that’s for another post.

Ultimately, it takes a lot of work to turn a game into a good one, and even more work to make it great. Dagger Lords, as we’ve got it now, is just the start of things, so I encourage you to take a look and watch how the game is growing.

We, we love corny motivationals.

Our Early Access Alpha Playtest on Itch.io

You can grab the latest export of Dagger Lords on Itch.IO and, as always, in our public development document.

Things are getting real when you put work into the cover.

That’s it for the series, so give Dagger Lords a try and let us know if you’ve got any suggestions, in the comments below.

 

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Make a Wargame Ep 5 – Hero Powers – MM 46

It’s Mini Monday, where we share miniature projects for your roleplaying and tabletop gaming. This week we’re rounding off our tabletop skirmish wargame with hero powers. We’ll also touch on playtesting one last time, because it’s important. Dagger Lords won’t feel like a complete skirmish game without some hero powers, so let’s look at building some today.

Episode 1: Concept and Theme
Episode 2: Initiative and Turns
Episode 3: Movement
Episode 4: Combat
Episode 5: Powers and Playtesting
Episode 6: Polishing the Game

We’re updating the public Dagger Lords game document as we go, so be sure to check in and see what we have so far. Don’t forget to leave a comment too, because it gets lonely here in the lockdown.

Final Thoughts on Playtesting

Before we jump into the mechanics we’ll be developing, let’s look at playtesting one more time, to get the bigger picture.

Throughout our project, we’ve created mini prototypes, which we’ve tested and iterated on. These small games help to pick out the fun and broken mechanics, which we can then keep or fix. It’s like getting to hold and feel your ideas, which does a lot for knowing if you’re on the right track.

One of the hardest aspects of game design, for a small studio or a hobbyist, is getting enough playtesting in. Now especially, with lockdowns and Covid still impacting the number of face-to-face games, it can be hard to get players in front of your work, especially when it’s new, buggy, and not connected to a well-known IP.

This is one reason why we made the Roll20, provide another way to reach fans across borders and time zones. Still, people only have so much time, and you can’t expect people, even good friends, to set aside a few hours to play.

Ultimately, you often need to try the game for yourself, as often as you can.

For Undersea Sourcebook series. Apart from that, we try to keep the lines of communication open between ourselves and the players that buy our books, so we can keep improving.

Why is any of this important?

Because making a good game matters, and the only way to ensure that a game is fun is to play it.

By the Power of…!

A game just doesn’t feel complete without some showy powers to deploy against your opponent. Powers also give us an opportunity as designers to showcase the core mechanics and the theme of the game.

Here are a few examples:

Dagger Lords is about fantasy street gangs. Think Gangs of New York, but with goblins and dwarves. Powers that showcase the gang element might have names like Backstab, Cut Throat, For the Brotherhood, Betrayal, Brawl, Club to the Noggin, and so on.

We can tie these to the Reflex Point mechanic easily by making powers cost a number of Reflex Points, but we can also have powers that influence Reflex Points. Ambush, for example, might let you roll a die to steal Reflex Points at the beginning of the game.

Powers give us a good way to prototype racial/heritage abilities and class abilities, which we can later bake into the stat blocks for the various units that populate our game. We can also test weapons as powers, which gives us a lot of modularity.

Let’s jump into the prototype, where we’ll see some initial ideas for powers.

Dagger Lords — Prototype: Street War

The objective of this game is to destroy all of your opponent’s units.

Setup and Rounds

Each player controls 4 gangster miniatures, with the player representing the gang boss. A game has two players. Any miniatures can be used, and for these rules, only close combat weapons are considered because of powerful magic influencing the battlefield. Each mini has 2 Reflex Points, 2 Reflex, +2 Brawl, and 3 Hit Points.

Before the start of the game, each model can purchase a power from those listed below. A model must meet all requirements of the power to be able to use it:

The game is played in a number of rounds, and each round has three phases:

  1. Initiative
  2. Activation (Combat and Movement)
  3. Top-Up

1. Initiative

Each player rolls 1d10 for their gang. Each miniature can spend 1 of their 2 Reflex Points to add +2 to the roll. Play proceeds in order from the player with the highest total to the player with the lowest total.
Dice off for ties.

2. Activation

Each player then acts in initiative order and can activate their miniatures in any order they wish. At the start of the player’s activation, their models gain a number of Reflex Points equal to the following equation:

Activation Reflex Points = (Remaining Reflex Points x 2) – 1

The minimum number of Activation Reflex Points a model gains is always 1.

To activate a miniature, you must spend a Reflex Point to make an attack, use a power, or move 6 inches.

To make an attack against an enemy model within 2 inches of your model, you roll 1D10 and add your Brawl modifier. The target rolls 1D10 and adds their Reflex modifier. You can each spend a Reflex Point before you roll to add +2 to your total roll. If you equal or beat the target’s score, you have scored a hit. The target loses 2 HP.

Any model can interrupt another model’s attack to attack instead by spending 1 Reflex Point. The order is decided in the order of declared interrupts, so it’s possible for a model to interrupt another model that is interrupting it, the player only has to declare their interrupt after the interrupting player does, and spend the required Reflex Points to do so.

3. Top Up

After all the models on both sides have activated, each model that isn’t destroyed regains 1 Hit Point and Reflex Points equal to their Reflex ability score. A model can never have more than their starting amount of these points.

Winning and Losing

A gang member is destroyed if they lose all their Hit Points. The winner is the first player to destroy all their enemy’s units, or who has destroyed the most enemy units when the time is up.

That’s it for today. Next time we’ll be polishing off the game, so give Dagger Lords a shot and, if you have any , be sure to let us know.

 

40 for 40 Sale

I turned the big Four Oh this month, and to celebrate we’re running a bunch of sales all month long.

On our store, you can use the coupon code “40for40” to get 40% off your cart’s total value at checkout. You can use the coupon as many times as you like, until the end of the month.

Many of our products are 40%-off on Drive Thru RPG. This includes many titles for fifth edition fantasy, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, and stand-alone titles. We also have a few Pathfinder Second Edition and Starfinder Roleplaying Game titles.

On the DMs Guild we’ve got a massive bundle worth over $60 going for less than $16. This bundle includes many of our best-selling titles, so if you’ve bought them already you’ll pay even less to fill out your collection.

Tips and Tricks

Be a Sharp GM, use the Ultimate NPC Database

Want to be a sharp GM, known for running a great game? Of course you do!
A good NPC database is the perfect tool for busy GMs, and we’ve got a solution that’s cheap, analogue, and easy to use.

July’s RPG Blog Carnival

This month’s RPG Blog Carnival is hosted by Of Dice and Dragons, and the theme is The Gamer’s Notebook. We’re looking at our own campaign notebooks, experimenting with ideas for tracking games, and sharing our personal thesis on shorthand for orcs. Here at your friendly Phoenix, we’re going back to one of our oldest products, one that I still use in my RPG sessions now: NPC Strategy Cards.

The Power in Your Palm

There are loads of useful apps for tracking your game, but I prefer analogue solutions, especially if I’m playing online and want to limit the number of tabs I have open. I often play on Roll20.net, which has a nice NPC database system, but I find it slow and cumbersome. Give me something physical instead.

Cards are my go-to. They’re stackable, sortable, easy to randomize, annotate, or group. You can also sling them at things, Gambit style.

The beautiful print on demand NPC Strategy Cards.

You might call me a Luddite. I’m fine with that. Don’t say I didn’t warn you when Skynet sends in the kill-drones. Card, at their worst, might give you a paper cut. That’s nothing Sarah Connor can’t handle with a band-aid.

They’re Cheap, But We Can Do Cheaper

Our Magic: the Gathering card:

You could use old business cards, cut up cereal boxes, or find blank cards at a stationery shop. I found, however, that writing on card sleeves damages them, so I don’t recommend that. The best method is probably to stick blank paper on old playing cards. Keep all the NPC cards you make and you’ll have a great database of characters at hand when you need them.

Our print on demand cards are laminated, so they take whiteboard markers well and are easy enough to clean. The PDF and cards are pay what you want, so you can get them as cheaply as you want, although your is greatly appreciated.

 

40 for 40 Sale

I turned the big Four Oh this month, and to celebrate we’re running many sales, all month long, with plenty of options for a sharp GM like you.

On our store, you can use the coupon code “40for40” to get 40% off your cart’s total value at checkout. You can use the coupon as many times as you like, until the end of the month.

Many of our products are 40%-off on Drive Thru RPG. This includes many titles for fifth edition fantasy, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, and stand-alone titles. We also have a few Pathfinder Second Edition and Starfinder Roleplaying Game titles.

On the DMs Guild we’ve got a massive bundle worth over $60 going for less than $16. This bundle includes many of our best-selling titles, so if you’ve bought them already you’ll pay even less to fill out your collection.

Until next time, Be the Hero!