The Robgoblin

Honestly, RPG blogosphere. If there were a Bloggie for 'worst blog', I'd be a contender. I'm not trying to beat myself up here; it's just a reflection of fact that I've barely written anything, my site doesn't even have a blogroll, and my web design would have been awful in 2008. Which is, incidentally, the year the internet was at its best. But, like everyone else with a blog, I couldn't help but look myself up at graph.elmc.at . Imagine my surprise to discover I'm ranked 157 out of 514 on interconnectedness. Which is not the totality of what constitutes a good blog. But apparently nearly 70% of RPG bloggers are even less  connected than me. Low bar, folks. If you're reading this and not blogging anything, write something. You might like it. If you're reading this and you are  blogging something, link to other people. Even if it's just to say 'hey, look at this dingbat who thinks he can tell me what to do'. That's how convers...

Adventuring is a poor career choice. It's invariably dirty, almost always difficult, and usually dangerous. To be honest, being left to die alone in some cold, dark hole in the ground is one of the better outcomes for an adventurer. Yet there is a seemingly endless stream of novices keen to endure the challenges. Why? Well, it's quite simple. Intelligence agencies have known it for years: MICE. Money  might be obvious, but it probably isn't actually the best motivation, and for one simple reason. It's not that you can't become fabulously wealthy, or establish yourself as some petty king out beyond the frontier. That's entirely possible, and there are plenty of stories of those who have done exactly that. But fundamentally, you have to live in order to enjoy your wealth. And when your life expectancy is measured in weeks, not months or years, that starts to look unlikely. That's not to say nobody  is motivated by money. But it's likely to be an initial mo...

This month's Blog Carnival is about magic shops. I don't like magic shops. Having magic sufficiently commonplace that any town worthy of its walls has a dealer in ensorcelled household items just doesn't lend itself to the kind of adventures I enjoy. If you want a magic item, the right and proper way to get it is to find out who owns it, and go take it from them - whether by through strength or through guile. Same goes for crafting them. If you were a good enough blacksmith to make magic items, you'd be doing that - not putting yourself in danger going down holes in the ground full of monsters. If your fantasy is pretending to be a skilled artisan, then all power to you. But maybe play a game that's about that. But, from time to time, it's inconvenient to go and do the deed yourself. Especially if your first name is 'King' or 'Archpriest' or something like that. And likewise, if one finds a particularly lucrative vein of enchanted sandals, the av...

Sea of Stars is hosting the Blog Carnival again: https://seaofstarsrpg.wordpress.com/2025/02/05/beginning-this-months-rpg-blog-carnival-dragon-neighbors-how-do-you-live-with-a-dragon-nearby/ So how do  you live next door to a dragon? Well, if you're an ordinary person, it might not be all that bad. See, dragons and lords don't get on. If you've got a lord, they show with all their cronies – sorry, 'knights' – up talking nonsense about who can fish in what pond, demanding your best cattle, and all that kind of thing. Then their  lord shows up, or Gods forbid the King, and you've got to show up at the castle, looking all happy to be a day behind on your fieldwork while you wait at table. Seriously, fuck lords. A dragon, meanwhile... sure, they take the occasional cow as well. But only for themselves, so it works out less in the long run. But they don't care who does what where. Or with whom, come to that. They collect weird shit. Gold mostly. But then so do so...

Blech. I've been trying to come up with a variant Fighter class for B/X derivatives. Trouble is, so has everyone else, and all my ideas are either (a) ones that someone has already tried or (b) difficult to implement sensibly. So instead of turning them into a coherent class, here's a mini slush pile. Some of it leans quite heavily on posts at Methods & Madness, particularly this one and this one , as well as Chainmail – whose Fighting-Man was clearly supernatural. Hey, if we've got someone in their dressing gown chucking fireballs around, and someone else in a leather waistcoat climbing sheer walls, I think the person who's good at fighting should be really good . Bump hit dice up one size.  This was based on the idea that a Normal Human has 1 HD, rather than ½ HD, while sticking with the d8 standard. This lets Mages be a bit stronger than standard rules, with d6 hit dice, but still weaker than your average peasant. Thieves get a d8. And Fighters get a d10. Attack...

The Goblovna 1 has always been a bit sceptical of the whole 'roleplaying game' thing. In part because being handed a 300-page technical manual to read isn't her idea of a fun time. Strange I know. But evidently I've been doing something right as an ambassador for the hobby, because she asked me to run a game for her and two friends - themselves gamers. We settled on Scurry! from Stout Stoat games, because (a) the actual rules  fit on one page, and (b) the allure of playing as a cute woodland creature was strong. Although, as things turned out, 'cute' may not have been quite the right word. Characters were: Helizabeth:  A hedgehog poulticepounder, apparently unaware she is a hedgehog. Married to Weatherwarts the toad for three years, bearing him two children before he absconded. Wee Bobbins:  A robin mapmaker. Had an on-again, off-again casual relationship with Weatherwarts the toad. Apparently it's all about the tongue. It's now been off for entirely t...

The RPG Blog Carnival for this month takes The Worlds Between  as its theme. Bridges always feel like a liminal space to me. You're neither on one bank nor the other, but floating in between. Especially when it's foggy, or dark. The Bridge Between Worlds takes this to its logical conclusion. Obviously, a properly constructed bridge is anchored in reality at both ends. But in the proper conditions, where one end loses sight of the other, those anchors can drag. Those journeying across the bridge may not arrive in the usual place. You may just wind up in a foreign land. Or perhaps Faerie. Or the deepest circles of Hell. It is difficult to be sure. And if you should leave the bridge, you had better be quick about your business. If the fog lifts, or daybreak comes, or the bridge otherwise becomes properly anchored in reality... well, good luck finding your way back. It can be done, of course. But it is not without danger. This only has to happen once or twice before superstitions a...