Archive for May 2015
Camping for Bennies Revisited (D&D5e Version)
Why revisit camping?
So as I mentioned in the original post about camping for benefits, the campsite is often over looked as a good place to have RP and could provide mechanical benefits for the party. So I am updating it for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition. Again this should work for any setting using the Dungeons & Dragons rules.
Food & Drink
Extend your rations with hunting. The basics are the same think about the game in the area and can be treated as a random encounter. You can also use survival to actively track game or gather food supplies. Using the chase rules (DMG 252) can also make the encounter more interesting, most animals will have a fight or flight reaction to hunters and most will take to flight making the chase even more important. If the players fail to drop the target with one hit have a chase ensue. As for cooking since D&D5e has streamlined the mechanics for skills you can just let the players say what they are cooking. This may be a great chance to work in their backstory and background, say they come from a land that is like Mongolia, but they are from the lower class. Their food is most likely some sort of delicious grilled food with sauce flavoring or grains and gathering related. Where as if they were from a wealthier background they may not even know how to cook well because of the pampered Noble life they were leading before adventuring. Same food just burned and they may know about some expensive dishes the Urchin could only dream of. Again this can lead to some interesting RP as not every character may love Mongolian Barbecue (for reasons unknown, because it is sooo good).
For an added mechanical benefit to help motivate players you could allow fresh food to give players increased resting benefits for the next day. Normally a long rest restores half of your total Hit Dice after a long rest. So I would give them the normal half total hit dice for a long rest plus one extra.
Music/Stories (Interludes)
One of my favorite things from Savage Worlds was the interludes, basically you would get a moment to tell people about you background in character or have the spot light to further develop your character. I mentioned it could be music as well or some other common feature of your worlds campfire traditions. Normally in Savage World this get you a Bennie (think Inspiration).
I mentioned in that last post that I would give more bennies for more creativity, for D&D I like the idea of awarding the players with Inspiration for this, but keep in mind they can only have 1 Inspiration at a time unless you change that for your table. So I would give inspiration to the player who did an interlude and allow one player a chance to do an interlude each campsite. The rules for what type of interlude from Savage Worlds may still be used if you want to keep it random, if not story-tell.
Gear
If you use gear maintenance this would be a good time. I will be putting up a post about gear quality in D&D in the future, I will revisit camping with these gear quality rules in that post.
The Hearth
This by far was my favorite part from the last post. The idea of increased healing is awesome but it should do more than just add hit points since the way resting recover works. I would have it add 1 Hit Dice to those you recover during a rest if they carry a stone from the previous nights hearth with them to the new night's hearth. A prayer to the god of the hearth would be use to bless the hearth, no spells needed. If using the fresh food option that is up to 2 Hit Dice extra after a long rest.
Optional Rules
If you are using the optional healing rules feel free to tweek these to fit the options to your healing rate in game. Since often its a a change in what a short rest/long rest is defined as.
World Building Extras: More Maps & Upcoming Races Inspiration
World Building Extras: More Maps & Upcoming Races Inspiration
So I love collecting pictures for for inspiration, this one happens to be the YouTube channel thumbnail and a big source of inspiration for the Flood World concept, now named Isengar. I love the jagged alien nature of this planet but I wanted to use it for fantasy a fantasy project my friend started with me when we played a very complicated world building game. From there it has grown and expanded into something kind of neat. When I sit down and work on the map for the world I don't rush the work like I have done in the past because I am pacing myself to go with my planned YouTube schedule. It has afforded me a chance to look at some different aspects I had not thought of, so if anything is a take away from this is to give myself more prep time than I have in the past usually I have taken about three weeks or less to prep a homegrown game. This project has already exceeded my normal timeline and I don't think it should normally take this as long as the YouTube series will, but it should be longer or at least more developed than I have been treating it in the past couple years of games. The hope is to create a world that you are excited about and want to explore, but also to create something the players will be interested in so you will begin to see more open discussion items as the series develops. Stay tuned for more and as always please like, comment, and subscribe.Map Updates:
Race Inspiration Pictures
World Building Extras: Deities & Demiblogs
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Deities & Demiblogs
Moving along with the World Builder series on the YouTube channel we started talking about what kind of gods we want to use in this setting. So in part three I talked about using the domains created by Tim Harper at Samwise Seven RPG. So here is my list presented in the format you would see in D&D5e Player's Handbook.I haven't worked out exactly the relationships of the gods just yet but that can be left open to player input for now this is just as much information as what a player gets in the Players Handbook. So far I have not named the world or the pantheon since it is still early in the process.
After that we look at some map update pictures. I would also like to add that the discussion on the races for the "Flood World" is still open to suggestions. and comments, anything from an aesthetic looks to culture is an open topic.
Gods of Unnamed Pantheon (Flood World)
| Deity | Alignment | Suggested Domains | Symbol |
| Kuru, god of magic and learning | NG | Magic, Knowledge | A sword hilt with an eye in the center |
| Ilo, god of illumination | CG | Light, Fire | A single lit candle with a white flame |
| Nit, god of obfuscation | CE | Water, Darkness | A brass candle snuffer |
| Cyone, goddess of the natural way | N | Moon, Nature | A cerulean blue disc |
| Ezdar, god of fortune | CN | Trickery, Illusion | A silver coin with two faces: one of joy , one of sorrow |
| Malkor, watcher of souls and ruination | LE | Death, Destruction | A black iron coffin nail |
| Rayphon, goddess of civic duty | LN | Crafts, Protection | A shield and a smith's hammer |
| Abris, the traveler god | LN | Trade, Travel | A white feather |
| Ibtarr, god of fertility and the stars | NG | Life, Stars | A bassinet with three stars over it |
| Berius, god of battle | LG | War, Strength | A golden ram rearing |
| Lytrix, goddess of the wind | CN | Air, Fate | Triskelion |
| Acrena, goddess of hunting and stone | N | Earth, Animals | A primative longbow and arrow with stone arrowhead |
| Kazra, the unseen | LE | Plants, Revenge | Black antlers with twisting vines |
| Beta Nazhel, goddess of illness and suffering | NE | Slime, Suffering | A snail |
Map Updates:
More to come next time, see you at the gaming table.
