The Robgoblin

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...

I like thinking about alternative ability scores for D&D-like systems. Taking a bit of inspiration from Call of Cthulhu's Sanity score, here's an alternative take on character survivability. Characters have Hit Points. For the sakes of a D&D-like system, this can range from 1 to 20, but is initially determined by rolling 3d6 modified by Constitution. A character with 21 Hit Points (theoretically possible only by rolling 18 HP and 18 Con) is a Conan-type superhero, as close to invincible as it comes. A character with 1 Hit Point is as close to death as can be imagined. A character with 0 Hit Points is dead. There is no such thing as a Hit Die. Maybe Fighter-types roll highest 3 of 4d6, and Magician-types roll the lowest 3 of 4d6. When a character takes damage, they must roll a Hit Point check, 1d20 under their current Hit Points. On a failure, they take a high amount of damage. On a success, they take a low amount or none. This may be expressed as ' 0/1 ' - for s...