Introduction



Hello there and welcome to The Metal Bard blog! I am a TTRPG enthusiast who likes to discuss new ideas and develop content. Much of what I will be posting will concern a hex-crawling game that I have been developing, including its mechanics, creatures, and lore. At times, I may write about general TTRPG concepts, and upload short adventures or resources for OSR-style games and Dungeons and Dragons.

I hope you find the content interesting, and I encourage you to join me in the discussion.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Carousing Table

Image
  In chorus we sing of wine, sweet wine, Its power benign, and its flavor divine. -Bacchanalian, Francisco Martinez de la Rosa Some adventurers do it for the excitement, the glory, the treasure. In a profession where every day may be your last, life is lived to the fullest. So, when adventurers return carrying their fallen companions and bags of treasure, there is nothing left to do but to live your best life by carousing! Why did I make this? I needed a carousing table for the hexcrawl I’m running. The game is an amalgamation of mechanics, tables, and procedures that I’ve found interesting plus the weird ideas I’ve dreamt up. As such, there were carousing results that I wanted to have, such as MCC mutations. I also wanted to tie a better probability of getting something good with spending more. You may notice that lower results have more detrimental results than higher results. It was hard to find this, so I put one together. Note: In some instances I'm using third-party tables
Read more

A Hexploration Procedure

Image
You’ve hiked a rocky terrain for hours looking for a safe way down into a valley. A series of stacked boulders now provide that opportunity. You may carefully leap down the boulders, being absolutely precise for a slip could mean a terrible injury. Alternatively, you may continue searching for another descent, but night is approaching, and another day to get into the valley would cost you valuable time and resources. When I think of wilderness exploration, I am reminded of my hiking and camping trips. I like going light with only the necessary items, meaning that I must ration my viands and use my tools carefully. I have also often taken these trips alone meaning that I must balance exploration and risk (climbing over boulders, going into caves, etc.). While I lean on the side of safety, I have always been intrigued by dramatic stories of exploration like Against the Ice, and Kon-Tiki, among others. Of course, I would avoid such life-threatening positions as sailing across the Paci
Read more

A Collage of RPG Systems

Image
  In an earlier post I alluded to some mechanics and procedures that I am using for a hex-crawling game. In this post, I will discuss the base system mechanics and why I chose them. There are many systems out there, each providing a different take on how to play an RPG. Some are focused on combat, some on exploration, and others on storytelling. I believe that the collection of rules, mechanics, and procedures is an attempt by the author to achieve a specific type of gameplay. For my hex-crawling game, I wanted to simulate the difficulty and wonder of overland exploration with an infusion of fantastical elements. I wanted to achieve a feeling of wonder approximating how I imagine Bilbo felt during his journey in The Hobbit . Just like I created an RPG adventure collage by merging independent ideas and content, I decided to do the same for the base systems. Character System: Simplicity. Originally, I wanted to use Old School Essentials (OSE). I liked the simplicity of the character
Read more