Azzod's Temple: Map25.02

Another work break map, a simple remote temple inside a mountain or hill. The hermit-like monks run the temple for dedicated followers on a pilgrimage to a holy place in their religion.

Solo d6 Fantasy: Session 0

I took some time over a break at work to use the Solo d6 Fantasy system for a spin and created two characters for an actual play. I used the rules exactly as stated and based the character cards on the ones in the photo in the rules.

System is pretty robust and allows you to create unique feeling characters (especially with the trait table to help flesh out the character's personality) with just a few rolls and notes. One thing to note is that this is a player-facing rolling game, so all rolls are made by the players. This may sound logical given that this is primarily meant for solo play, but this is also FOR the characters, meaning all rolls are made on behalf of the characters. You roll to attack and you roll to defend from the monsters’ attacks. Which I thought might be a problem for me as I have never really enjoyed that sort of thing but I have to tell you, I love it! The fact also that a character can choose to dodge an attack OR block it (block using STR and dodge using FIN) allows a greater feeling of control and creative license to be tactical in the attributes you use. 

I will probably at some point create an additional equipment table as the included one is short, no doubt so it could be included in the small footprint of the game. The Expanded version includes excellent random tables for terrain, encounter activities, treasure, NPCs, a selection of common monsters….enough to let any solo play really bite into and create a solid gaming session.

I generated a basic quest presmise and starter village from the tables and after randomly roll some tables realized I could utilize one of the maps I have created. So Vinarys & Mortbello are set to head out for the first adventure!

The Bandits' Defilement: Map25.01

Another friend and I were lamenting that we missed the creative process that was fulfilled by gaming back in the day (both of us have stepped away due to the politicized gaming community). 

Christian smartly said: “Don’t do anything grand, fellas. Field notes map doodles, star block, adventure seeds, etc. Quick little bites for a daily creative check in, but leave it at that.” 

And you know what? He was exactly right. I immediately stepped back, pulled out my field notes, and tossed this together. No grand “I am going to publish this!”, no “I am going to throw this into Affinity and clean it up, add color!”…just a notebook and a pen.

I think too often my desire to create morphs into a desire to create things useful to others. My enjoy moves from the most important thing for me and is replaced with others' needs. I think I have let this dominate the way I create things for so long that I honestly do not know how to just do for me. This left me feeling very much unfulfilled as a creator, gamer, heck...person.

After a month away, and discussing this with my other good friend Bill, I realized what the problem was: I missed gaming for me. Doing what I enjoy and (sorry) reader/others be damned. I need to do what brings me joy. I have always enjoyed mapping, so I followed Christian's advice and took five minutes or so at work and drew a map using what I had handy. Luckily, I always have a Field Notes style notebook, pens and a marker.  The result is what I posted at the top of this page. 

Is it perfect? Heck no. Might someone use it? Maybe? Do I care? Not really. Around the same time I stumbled upon Solo d6 Fantasy. Now, I love me some d6s and a simple system and I have tried dozens of them and they just felt lacking, this one though, I really liked. Just deep enough to be interesting, but not so deep that it kills the speed of play for me. I am going to play it for a while, goof off, and have some fun. Some of you might like it, most probably won't but you know, I don't care.

So I guess what I am saying is...

"Hi. I am back. I am going to have some fun for me and enjoy some creating and gaming, my way."

Solo d6 Fantasy: Expanded

 

I discovered this little gem after spending some time away from gaming for a while. This is a great little system with enough depth to really get you into the game without weighing you down with needless pages of rules.

Solo d6 Fantasy: Expanded is available on itchi.io. I have created characters, played two sessions and I am having a great time. I may post some actual play in the future but for now, I just thought I would share this neat little game I discovered.

Wyllow & Brannoc, session 0 (Arneson Gaming)

Playing around and doing some playtesting of the AG rules, whipped up (rather quickly) some basic fantasy types to go on a little adventure. I used some random tables I came up with to serve as a 'kit' to get a jump start on creating an interesting character and 'rolled' up two characters. I figure with this little bit of information I should be able to run a full game. Let's see how this goes...

Arneson Gaming, revisited?

Well, I have been rummaging around for about six months, trying out various things, new systems, anything to get my creative juices flowing again and I stumbled upon that little gem on my Google Drive that I wrote nearly a decade ago and, well, it sort of would not get out of my head. So, screw it, 

I am working on some more details, creating a phone version of the PDF for easy use while mobile. I am also thinking about some 'kits' for different genres of gaming such as fantasy, scifi, Gothic Noir, post-apoc, etc. Not sure yet, but we will see where this goes.