Greetings Programs!
Welcome to the latest instalment of the State of the Cataclysm blog things, in which we'll give you a brief update on what's happening in the many worlds of Beyond Cataclysm and share some cool stuff we thing you might enjoy.
Dragonmeet
In the last weekend in November we hit the Excel in London, which is the new home of Dragonmeet, the finest one day gaming convention in the world (certainly in the UK!). It was a whirlwind of driving, sleep deprivation and chocolate, but we had a total blast. It's always nice to reconnect with folks we maybe haven't seen since last years Dragonmeet and give hugs the myriad of rpg creators we share this crazy life with. We had famous faces like Chris McDowell, Paolo Greco and Will Rahman swing by to say hi as well. And and this guy, who made a total nuesence of himself and actually lost us at least one MORK BORG sale!
Hellspawn
We're currently crowd funding HELLSPAWN, which is a ghastly MORK BORG hack about demons trying, and failing, to escape the tortures of hell! It's compatible with just about every MB hack you can think of, including our very own MORK ORG. Help us smash a few more stretch goals here before it's too late!
Surprise Mega Bundles
Looking for the perfect Christmas gift for that hard-to-buy-for friend? Look no further! Our Surprise Mega Bundles are now available in values of £25, £50 or £100. They're guaranteed …
Welcome to Episode 25 of ‘What Is Roleplay?'
This episode CM Lowry is joined by Steph Windross to discuss Crits
To start the conversation CM Lowry asks Steph to define what the meaning of a Crit in roleplay games
Crit is short for Critical Roll, either a Critical Success or a Critical Failure. In short that means you have a rolled either the highest (success) or lowest (failure) number on the dice. These usually have interesting results which impact on the game as you continue to play.
CM reminds us that if your unsure about dice you can revisit
Episode 1 of
What Is Roleplay
Most games and systems will require that the dice actually land on a natural 20 in order for that to be considered a Crit Success - so if you roll 18 and add some sort of bonus that makes your score 20 that would not count as a Crit.
Steph shares some about a brilliant Crit Success from her real life adventures in roleplay games such as DnD and Blades in the Dark.
In Blades in the Dark Crits create narrative currency for collaborative story telling moments
CM & Steph chat about some of the things that can happen when you roll a critical fail - a sort of doubling down on the things that go wrong.
CM asks Steph to chat about some games that don't use Crits. Steph mentions lots of the current batch of OSR (Old-School Renaissance) games
CM chats about the …
Welcome to Episode 20 of ‘What Is Roleplay?!
This episode we are joined by fantasy map maker Jog Brogzin to discuss Maps
What is a fantasy map maker? Someone who makes fantasy maps. Unlike a regular cartographer they're not looking to create maps that will safely guide you to your destination - they're not looking to complete with GPS or Ordinance Survey. Instead they are looking to tell a story through the map.
Jog creates maps for conventions such as
Dragonmeet and
Warpcon, making sure they have the flavour of the particular convention.
Jog first got into maps by going hiking and taking a map and a compass to be able to know exactly where they were at all times.
In RPG maps are an important part of the lore - here is the world, what do you want to do with it?
CM Lowry asks Jog to share some roleplaying games that feature maps and have sparked joy.
The Royal Cartographer - A Solo Journaling Map Making RPG by Albi
Colostle - A beautifully illustrated Solo World-building RPG by Nich
We Sail Beyond - A map making game for group play By Matt Sanders
Jog shares some tips for making your own maps
Don't be to hard on yourself - have fun with it
Remember the purpose is for story telling more than navigation
Manage your expectations on how much people will interact with your map
Share your skills with others if you can
Hex Maps are discussed: …
