Over at https://landofnod.blog/ you can find posts by John Stater called Dragon by Dragon where he reads through an issue of Dragon Magazine and gives his thoughts about it. I recently bought a big pile of NOD Magazine and thought I would return the favor and go through each issue similarly.
March 08, 2022
Nod by Nod #7
April 21, 2021
Nod By Nod - December 2010 (#6)
Over at https://landofnod.blog/ you can find posts by John Stater called Dragon by Dragon where he reads through an issue of Dragon Magazine and gives his thoughts about it. I recently bought a big pile of NOD Magazine and thought I would return the favor and go through each issue similarly.
It's Christmas in April! Back in December 2010, I first started roleplaying with my daughter who was 9 years old. She was a fan of the Warriors series of books about wild cats and there was a free diceless RPG you could download and play. Pretty cool game and the GM role rotated so she got to play and GM. We wouldn't discover OSR games for almost five years after that.
Anyway, back to Nod #6. It's a big one - 133 pages! It starts off with Holiday Magic, two pages of magical items associated with December holidays and also a spell (Chimney Charm) and a writeup of Saint Nick as a demigod.
We then get Gods of the Motherlands, eight pages of a pantheon "based on a mash-up of Greek and Roman myth with the medieval church." It's the standard Nod format for god descriptions except that most gods now have a holy day listed too.
The featured hexcrawl is next: Western Venetia. It is a mix of forests, hills, mountains, swamps, and sea coast with a little bit of everything for adventuring. It's 103 pages long and could keep a campaign running just by itself for a very long time.
Level 3 of Pleasure Palace of Izrigul is next. This level of the adventure started in Nod #4 and continued in Nod #5 is seven pages of a theater putting on a play for Izrigul complete with wandering emotion encounters. It looks very interesting and I would love to give this a try.
The Traveler is a strange class. They are traveling through the world in a dream state and must focus on an object to impose their will on this world. It's just two pages and it opens up so much weirdness for a campaign.
Finally, Phantastes, Part 5 is presented. Unfortunately, there are no RPG notes given.
You can get Nod #6 for free at https://landofnod.blog/nod/ or you can get it in print from Lulu at https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/john-stater/nod-6/paperback/product-1qzgen5v.html.
March 27, 2021
Nod by Nod - October 2010 (#5)
Over at https://landofnod.blog/ you can find posts by John Stater called Dragon by Dragon where he reads through an issue of Dragon Magazine and gives his thoughts about it. I recently bought a big pile of NOD Magazine and thought I would return the favor and go through each issue similarly.
NOD #5 is 83 pages with a striking cover of Death taking a knight. It begins with Eat, Drink, and Be Scary! which is 6 pages detailing about 25 different kinds of vampires from many different mythologies. An example would be the Tlahuelpuchi, which are not undead but cursed from birth to feed on blood once per month. They take the form of a vulture at night when they go to hunt but resume their normal form when they enter a house. They usually live with their families who hide them so they do not also become cursed.
February 13, 2021
Nod by Nod - September 2010 (#4)
Over at https://landofnod.blog/ you can find posts by John Stater called Dragon by Dragon where he reads through an issue of Dragon Magazine and gives his thoughts about it. I recently bought a big pile of NOD Magazine and thought I would return the favor and go through each issue similarly.
January 09, 2021
Nod by Nod - July 2010 (#3)
- Goat people are great climbers, can see spirits, and can cast spells. (There are 24 new spells included in this issue!)
- Monkey people are fast climbers, acrobats, great at picking pockets and magic tricks, and are masters at low comedy and vulgar insults. They also go berserk when brought down to 5 or fewer hit points.
- Bear people are master brewers and wrestlers. Their mead can heal light wounds.
- Falcon people are quick, can spring around and use whirling death during combat.
- Lion people have a mighty roar that can cause fear in creatures with less hit dice. They also have a charge attack and can command animals.
- Cat people have keen hearing, are light-footed, and have an evasion power. They can also cast a small number of spells.
- Sheep people have a defensive stance, can ignore 1 point of damage, and have trap sense.
- Onager people are fearless, stubborn, charioteers.
- Horse people can command more henchmen, have better horses, and are better in mounted combat.
- Fox people have great perception, can move silently, and know herblore and a few spells.
- Night raven people are great at thievery and can prepare body parts to make them foci for casting spells.
- Camel people sings desert psalms that can ward away animals and the undead also know 2 more languages than normal.
- Swine people are great dungeon delvers who have a nose for gold and can decipher ancient texts.
January 03, 2021
Kung Fu Classics v0.3
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vFi5wqLUXQA3qGXeYTKKgTRZNeeYOgMD?usp=sharing
December 30, 2020
Nod by Nod - June 2010 (#2)
We start off Nod #2 with Cloak and Dagger, an article giving us a Thief and Assassin class. They're fine classes but there's nothing that really stands out with them.
December 22, 2020
Nod by Nod - May 2010 (#1)
NOD #1 came out in May 2010 and is 85 pages long. Mr. Stater starts (after the Table of Contents) with Welcome to NOD! where he gives some of his campaign design philosophy: only make what matters in game and also make a wide world of many cultures to explore. NOD Magazine is going to show us what he means.
The first article is one page about coins, how much they weigh, how much a character can carry, and how much they're worth. It gives us a good baseline for the loot that will be shown later.
Next, we have Fighting-Men of Nod, which details six classes: the fighting-msn, the barbarian, the bard, the monk (or swashbuckler if a monk does not fit in your campaign), the paladin, and the ranger. Each of thee classes get some special abilities at 1st level, and a few more as they progress in levels. All look fun, well made, and the abilities are light touches suitable for an OSR game.
Speaking of abilities for OSR games, the ensuing article Boons & Benefactions is all about abilities that characters can choose at 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th level. There are 43 of them and and a great way to do feats in an OSR style.
Then we get the biggest article, The Wyvern Coast. It is a sandbox complete with a two-page hex map and hex descriptions. We get a description of the area: the grasslands, the sea, and the coast, along with encounter tables and creatures. This article is 60 pages long and is a sizable adventure area just by itself. I don't want to say too much about it so as not to give spoilers but it is very imaginative and looks very fun. The black & white map is hard to read, however, and I suggesting getting the color maps Mr. Stater provides at https://landofnod.blog/nod/.
The article after is Wise Women & Cunning Men which is about adepts, practical spellcasters of rural folk. They are magically less powerful than clerics or magic-users but they have another skill that serves their community. (Pick one of alchemist, animal trainer, armorer, berserker, guide, healer, or sage.)
Next are Gods of Nod: Ophir which details the gods of the Wyvern Coast, based on the gods of the ancient Phoenicians. I like these god descriptions as stats are not given but instead we get the god's name, other names it is known by, who worships the god, what weapons the god uses, what are the god's minions, symbols of the god, alignment of the god, and what the god grants its priests (which is a unique spell detailed in this article). It is a great way to do gods.
After that is Random Villages which is a couple pages of random tables to create a village. An example village rolled on these tables is given: 200 cowardly shellfish fishermen that live in brick huts protected by a thicket getting their water from a cistern ruled by a council of elders have a den of assassins or highwaymen, and are famous for their dark secrets.
Denizens of the Dark Continent gives stats for some legendary creatures of African folklore. I especially like the Abatwa.
Beastmen, Centaurs & Mechanical Men is next and it details 3 "races" to put in to differentiate your campaign from the "traditional" fantasy campaign.
The last article is Your Mind Will Bend, detailing a Psychic class. there are twenty psychic powers to choose from and a psychic gets one at 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th levels. To use a psychic power, you must succeed at a saving throw and the target must fail at their saving throw. Looks very interesting yet still simple, which is a hallmark of Mr. Stater's.
I very much enjoyed NOD Magazine #1 and look forward to reading more! You can get the PDF for NOD #1 for free at https://landofnod.blog/nod/ or you can get it in print from Lulu at https://www.lulu.com/shop/john-stater/nod-1/paperback/product-11387029.html.
August 27, 2020
Kung Fu Classics
Do you play the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG? Are you interested in playing in or running a wuxia campaign? Please take a look at this and please let me know any comments or criticisms you may have or if you would you like to collaborate to expand on these ideas!
July 31, 2020
The Sword of Shannara, in conclusion
While the others spy on troops, rescue the king, and muster the human forces, these three slowly realize that this is THE sword and that Shea must face the Warlock lord with it. They are captured by trolls and Keltset eloquently (through bearing and sign language) pleads their case. And the trolls are persuaded and bring them to face the Warlock Lord.
And this is where I think it gets really interesting. The sword doesn't do anything sword-like. It might as well be a rock or a shoe. All it does is reveal truth. First Shea faces the truth about himself and then he forces the Warlock Lord to face the truth about himself. Unfortunately, the truth about the Warlock Lord, like any undead being, is that he should have been dead long ago. So he dies.
Have you done that sort of thing in your game? Give the evil forces information that turns them to your side? Use revealing truth in a devastating way? In what seems to be a story derivative of another, I like how this story changes things in interesting ways. Don't be afraid to let things change in your game!
May 24, 2020
The Sword of Shannara, part 2
There is only one scene that shows that this is a post-nuclear world and it is here where a half-flesh and half-metal insect-like monster attacks the party. Both Shea, the only one who can wield the sword, and his adopted brother are wounded by this beasts and are brought unconscious and close to death. After driving it away, the party must then find a friendly place where they can heal the brothers. But first there is a great group of gnomes blocking the way! The interesting thing is that these gnomes are not a war party looking for the heroes but some kind of religious ceremony. The heroes devise a plan to get past them and here we see a decision showing the morality of the heroes. The one designated to shoot an arrow will not kill an unsuspecting enemy so he wounds him instead.
After getting past the gnomes, they find some gnomes who heal the brothers and they are on their way again. Through a very Moria-like Hall of Kings. The monsters are different, showing Brooks's creativity, and this time, Gandalf (Allanon) does not get separated from the party but Shea. Of course, this is very problematic since only Shea can wield the sword. But the rest of the party goes on anyway to try to find the sword.
It's here that the story finally diverges from Lord of the Rings definitively. Shea is captured by gnomes and the rest find that the sword has been captured too. How can they possibly succeed? We'll have to read the last half of the book to find out!
May 10, 2020
The Sword of Shannara
This review covers only the first quarter of the novel and in its broad strokes, you will find it very similar to the Fellowship of the Ring. But although Sword of Shannara is very inspired by Lord of the Rings, it still goes its own way. It dispenses with Tolkien's poetry and gives us more action. You could even say that Sword of Shannara is the D&D version of Lord of the Rings.
Let's state the differences first. There are no hobbits in Shannara. Shannara is a world similar to ours after an apocalypse that made man evolve into gnomes, dwarves, and trolls. Elves were always around in our world but they now they no longer hide themselves. The Warlock Lord allies himself with gnomes and trolls and flying creatures called Skull Bearers. But the biggest difference is that there is no ring. There is a sword and, at the beginning of the story, the Warlock Lord has stolen it.
So while there is a fellowship of men, dwarves, elves, and a magic-user that forms after the two young men escape from Shady Vale, the quest is different. They have to find the sword. Then they have to figure out how to use the sword. And then defeat the Warlock Lord with the sword. Is that much of a difference? Yes. They are not hiding a ring as they travel to the land of Mordor, while the ring plays with everyone's hopes of power. They are on a mission of desperation. A mission that more resonates with D&D adventures than Tolkien.
I'll post more as I continue reading. What are your thoughts about The Sword of Shannara?
March 25, 2019
GMing off the rails
But the last one didn't work so well. The giant robot was chasing them so they headed off to find some robotics experts. That turned into a herd of mutant elf trampling their car and cyborgs who took them off in a spaceship to the inside of a volcano where another giant robot was being built.
It got crazy and was less and less players making decisions about what cool things their characters were doing and more of me the GM making up crazy stuff. I went off the rails and it wasn't good.
So now I'm taking a published adventure and looking through it, seeing what I want to use, and preparing a solid structure for next session.
But the question I want to ask you all is: Do you ever go off the rails like that? How do you rein yourself in?
January 21, 2019
Mutant Crawl Classics: Home For The Holideath
Now onto the section with spoilers!
So the setup for this is that the PC's tribe and another tribe have an annual gift exchange they do to maintain the peace between the tribes. The gifts have been stolen and the PCs are sent to try to retrieve the gifts in time for the exchange. I modified that a bit to make it more en media res.
My campaign has more of a "Umerican Survival Guide" setting so it's only been about 100 years since "The Great Disaster". Part of the joy of doing that is also setting the campaign where I live. So the gift exchange was between the Portland Oregon tribe and the Vancouver, Washington tribe on the remains of the I-5 bridge in the middle of the Columbia River. As the PCs (from the Vancouver tribe) were paddling their raft to the location, I had them witness the Portland tribe members flung off the bridge. Then, after the PCs climbed up to see what was going on, the thief (with a bag of Portland tribe gifts) used its rocket boosters to fly at them and take the Vancouver tribe's gifts too before flying off to Jantzen Beach.
A pure strain human used a Legendary Deed to grab the thief as it flew but then failed another deed as it tried to maneuver so fell into the bushes on shore. The others rescued the fallen human and then followed the flying thief to an old Toys R Us building. There, they found the fun things found in the adventure such as smart wrapping paper and a stingbear. But that's just the first floor! On the second floor, they found mutant rats and wooden soldiers (I changed the elves in the adventure to the rats from Nutcracker) and a crazy old toymaker along with a giant snowglobe. Then up to the final floor where they confront the A.I. named XMAS and a Christmas tree decorated with weaponized ornaments. But that's not all!
After all of that, the PCs found the thief, a matronly maid robot who attempted to spank the naughty PCs (yes, that's in the adventure!) but had its eye stabbed, which initiated a self-destruct sequence (that was my addition). The PCs escaped with the gifts, the exchange happened, and everyone was happy. Next adventure will start on the road when the Vancouver tribe sends them north in a car!