I Created 9 Unique Dwarven, Elven, & Orc Taverns!

I created 9 unique Dwarven, Elven, & Orc Taverns!

Welcome to the sequel of my Dwarven, Elven, & Orc Ships map pack! The last map pack was very popular, so I thought I would continue the theme and design 9 unique taverns that are owned and visited by these races.

As always, I tried to keep these maps fairly neutral in design without going too overboard (except for the orcs, like before...). I hope they serve useful in your games!

The grid size for each map is 30x40.

You can download the first three maps for free here.

worm

This large catamaran could make a suitable vessel for an adventuring party or an encounter as an exploration vessel or merchant. She measures 100 feet in length and 70 feet in width, is modestly armed with two ballistas, and her dual tumblehome hulls and shallow draft result in a stable, comfortable vessel.  Two smaller boats are carried onboard and launched via cranes for shore excursions.

The upper deck hosts a deckhouse which contains the ship's galley, mess, and  officers' wardroom, & captain's quarters. The lower deck in each hull contains cargo holds and sleeping quarters (including private, but spartan, accommodations for junior officers).

Full size PNGs and VTT files are available on my Patreon without watermark, in night/day + grid/gridless variants.

DM Tip: The Trouble With Treasure/ An Alternate Wealth System

If you’re a player or dungeonmaster who’s at all interested in game design you might’ve noticed D&D’s treasure and economy systems suck. You also might have noticed even if you’re not interested in game design, because the longer you play d&d the more it becomes glaringly obvious that the game doesn’t actually HAVE a treasure and economy system despite pretending otherwise.  This is a major problem given that seeking riches is one of the default adventuring motivations, and largely stems from the fact that back in ye-olden days gold was directly related to experience points, so wealth accrued exponentially in line with the increasing cost of levelling up. This is why magic items cost to damn much despite being not only a staple of the genre but absolutely necessary to the long-term viability of certain classes (as I discuss here in my post about gear as class features).  

After being cut lose however, nothing was really DONE with gold in d&d from a gameplay perspective: Treasure generation largely fell to dm discretion or random tables, and the useful things a party could buy steadily shrunk to the point where characters could be stuck with their starting equipment for an entire campaign.  “Too much gold and nothing to spend it on” became one of the major criticisms of d&d 5e, but only touched on the problem that without something worthwhile to spend treasure on the party has less and less reason to venture into the dangerous unknown, take dodgy contracts, or perform any of a half dozen other plot beats that make up traditional adventuring.

 The system likewise breaks down once you pass a certain threshold of wealth, or once you try to model larger economic activities: divvying up a lockbox full of dungeon plunder to reequip your heroes before launching out on the next mission works great for the first couple of levels, but completely falls apart when you’re dealing common enough story tropes such as running a business, transporting cargo as merchants, or caring for the estates around a castle.

What I propose is splitting d&d’s economy into two halves: Wealth, which represents the piles of GP and other coins the party carries with them, and Resources, more abstract points which chart how plugged in the party is to local systems of production, trade, and patronage.

If you’d like an explanation of how these systems work, and how they can improve your game like they improved mine, I’ll explain both of these mechanics in detail below the cut, as well as subsystems that let your party open businesses, operate estates, build castles, and make a living as merchants.

Keep reading

The Big OSR Post

What better way to close out the blog's first month but with a huge repository of fun OSR games? I'm not personally a huge fan, but I understand this is a genre people really enjoy, so as a compromise, I'll do every OSR submitted in a masterpost. I understand this is probably a pretty controversial move, but I simply think the genre's too similar to each other, I might be wrong but that's just the vibe I get! I'm sure there's some very fun and creative OSRs out there, they're just not made for me. I'll keep myself from sharing my thoughts on the genre for now, but rest assure these are cool games recommended by people who actually enjoy the genre!

Well, except this one:

itch.io

Trespasser by tundalus

Fantasy tactics TTRPG with old-school theming.

Trespasser is really good. It's a mix of the Combat of 4e, with the dungeon crawling, character creation, and general vibe of OSR, it's a really good time, and its a high recommend from me personally Now on to the list of games actually by people who care about OSR:

itch.io

Mausritter by Losing Games

Sword-and-whiskers roleplaying

This one's a very very popular one, Mausritter is based on stuff like Redwall, and it's chock full of incredibly high quality fanmade content, if you want an OSR where you play as a little rat, check this one out

itch.io

FIST: Ultra Edition by CLAYMORE

A paranormal mercenary roleplaying game

This one's pretty interesting, I was debating giving it its own post because it just breaks so many OSR conventions but it calls itself an OSR, so in here it goes ig. Fist is a game that takes the narrative first approach of a PBTA game, but combines it with lightning speed disposable character creation, to truly give you the experience of being an expendable mercenary going against unfathomable odds. This game's pretty fun, I'd check it out even if you're not into the OSR genre

itch.io

Electric Bastionland by Bastionland Press

A complete roleplaying game. Go deeper Into the Odd as a treasure hunter with a failed career and a colossal debt

this one's pretty popular, Electric Bastionland is a simple OSR that focuses on exploring a huge underground city, its very rules lite so you can usually get up and running with it pretty quick so go check it out if you want a simpler game

https://punkpadour.itch.io/yokai-hunter

Yokai Hunter's Society, its a good rules light game, a recommend if you want to hunt weird folkloric monsters

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/399483/Into-the-Odd--Remastered

This one's not on itch so sorry if you're allergic to non-itch.io websites

it's set in an underground society where one explores to find treasure. its a good fun time for all involved

look the tone isn't because i dislike these games, its because i wrote this entire post once and then tumblr glitched and made me lose all of it

https://emielboven.itch.io/tea-01

the setting's really fun, and the rules are lite, it's a good time. The setting is specifically based on Morrowind, Dark Sun, and other weird fiction.

https://graculusdroog.itch.io/vaults-of-vaarn

Vaults of Vaarn is a psychodelic ttrpg set in a postapocalyptic earth, its weird, fun, and also i believe its like entirely hand drawn which really adds to the aesthetic

https://tuesdayknightgames.itch.io/mothership-players-survival-guide

Mothership is a space horror OSR, its a biiiit more complex than the other ones, but its also got a shit ton of fan resources, and its also pretty basic in its character creation to make up for it

https://diogo-old-skull.itch.io/primal-quest-essentials

I got this one in a bundle actually

While the rules weren't for me, I think the setting is really cool, stone age fantasy is just really underrated as a concept, we need more of it!

itch.io

We Deal in Lead by By Odin's Beard RPG

A weird west wanders adventure game

We Deal in Lead is a weird west ttrpg, so if you're into that aesthetic, go check it out. its focused on exploration and player choice, and it can also be played with only one or two players

itch.io

Beetle Knight - Quickstart Edition by Brooklet Games

A Bug-Sized Tabletop Role-Playing Game

Beetle Knight is cool, its set in a tiny world where bugs are an organized society, think hollow knight, it's not out just yet, but its something to keep an eye on

OK I've actually PLAYED this one, so I can have an opinion on it: the WIthout Number series isn't great. BUT, there's a few rules which are ridiculously fun and well designed, so I honestly think this is a YMMV franchise. the biggest issue is how the rolling for HP works, if you can fix that, they're perfectly acceptable OSR games

itch.io

Songbirds 3e [is being kickstarted!] by snow

An eldritch fantasy game.

Songbirds 3e is a surrealist game about being chosen (Or cursed) by death to help spirits passing on, when spirits are left stuck on earth they grow more and more monstrous every day, and its YOUR job to stop them from growing into a problem, no pressure. https://davidblandy.itch.io/lost-eons

Lost Eons is neat, its a game set in a solarpunk post apocalypse where magic's all around and actively mutating everyone around. It's got a cool post human look at the world, fairly simple yet fun rules, weird and interesting spellcasting rules, and more!

itch.io

Knave by Questing Beast

A streamlined, elegant OSR RPG system

Knave is a streamlined classless OSR game, i heard a lot about this one and from what I can read its actually a really fun time, so check it out https://yochaigal.itch.io/cairn

itch.io

Grave by Jason Tocci

A soulslike RPG hacked from Knave

(these last two go together since they're both Knave derivatives just with different settings and some more interesting mechanics) https://killjestergames.itch.io/errant this game was pitched to me as "Maximalist second only to literally just D&D 1e hacks", so thats about as much of a pitch most people really need. It actually looks pretty interesting

https://gormengeist.itch.io/greed

GREED or: Oil for the Blood God! It's an intensely surreal game by @gormengeist, its from what I can tell a sort of deconstruction of the OSR genre of game, so definitely a bit more on the niche side, but its fairly interesting and well designed

A demonstration on different size classes in D&D (twink for scale)

Tiny:

Small:

Medium:

Large:

Huge:

Gargantuan:

Colossal: