Now that we are past the beginning, I will begin at the DAWN OF TIME and tell you about all the adventure games I have ever loved.
This will be a blog about tabletop role playing games (TTRPGs), the kind you play with dice or cards or coins. I’ll write about DnD and its d20 cousins, OSR/NSR games, fantasy, science fantasy, and gaming with kids and adults.
What do I know about TTRPGs? Less than many, certainly more than is healthy for me, and enough to be getting on with, I think?
Here's where I am coming from, TTRPG-wise (this post will be updated every few years):
In the beginning (Waldenbooks):
D&D Red Box
AD&D
AD&D 2e
Games played lately:
DnD 5e
AD&D
Shadowdark
Dragonbane
Wildsea
Cocaine Owlbear (da BEST Honey Heist Hack)
Pirate Borg
As a parent GM:
Hero Kids (a great kids TTRPG)
Adventurous (note bene: works well as a Hero Kids expansion)
Past campaigns (GM):
DnD 5e (online)
Current campaigns (GM):
DnD 5e (weekly, in person)
Mausritter (with my kids)
Rulesets I think I love but might be afraid to play: Dungeon World, Dogs in the Vineyard, His Majesty the Worm, Otherkind Dice
Want to play:
Nimble 2e, Glaive, Cairn, Mythic Bastionland, Vaults of Vaarn, Ultraviolet Grasslands, Perils and Princesses, Down We Go, GLOG, Knave, Mothership, Brindlewood Bay, Blades in the Dark.
Looking at this list, CLEARLY I need a friend to GM a Mythic Bastionland campaign, preferably set in the deserts of Vaarn. Yeah, that's the takeaway. :)
All done. Now let’s talk magical merchants.
d4 Magical Merchants
1-
Our first merchant is clearly an asshole (no verbal filter, blunt as a club, openly overcharges disliked patrons), who happens to sell a wide selection of valuable and interesting magical goods. Roll a d6 for asshole-ness (1: Clean freak, 2: Racist, 3: Sarcastically insulting, 4: Kicks puppies and beggars, 5: Sexist, 6: Combine these or add body horror). The key things are that A) your table hates him upon first encounter, and B) he has a price list of what is in his back shop. What makes him extra fun is that this list of items includes something AMAZING they will want to steal, but that is an effective security device.
In my game, he disdainfully asked the players to leave his shop ASAP and sent over a menu of magical items to their hotel (prefaced by an insulting note). I ran him in DnD, so on this list of level 2 appropriate items (many taken from Knock magazine #1) I included this ADnD jewel: Apparatus of Kwalish. A ingenious invention by a scholar of Marlinko, many years ago. It’s a large iron tub that transforms into a metal lobster, operated by someone inside. You cannot possibly afford it, but I include it here because it guards my shop at night, among other precautions against thieves: beware. 137,500 gp.
They can't wait to get powerful enough to go back and rob this bastard.
2-
Our second merchant is a powerful being, met drinking tea at an inn. He is either a shapeshifted dragon, a reserved efreet, a powerful fey, or some hidden horror, up to you. But he gives the players a golden ticket to visit his establishment. This ticket stops time and will teleport them to his interdimensional shop; they return to the same moment they left. He only takes cash, has on displaya grab-bag of items heros could want, and doesn't really take requests, although he will look in the basement for 1d4+1 items the players ask for. While he is down there, the players could cut and run with the items on display (you could also run a Mausritter one-shot as his brave servant mice, retrieving items from the rats of the deep cellar for their master, but that's bonus). He never quite meets a request head on, preferring monkey paws that force the characters to be heroic. Got a character who hangs in the back? Give them a magic helm powered each day by taking one hit meant for someone else!
3-
Our third merchant is a kindly and helpful one, running a well-stocked shop with a green awning on the side of a busy urban market, or the side of the road. She will move it soon after selling her items to you: she just needs one big score and then she drops out of sight. Her items work as advertised, but come with...issues. The rusty magical sword Thunder will lose magical oomph with every third hit (for DnD, going from +3 to +1, yeah ya overpaid sorry). The ring of flight works normally but erratically for two uses; after that, it cuts out randomly after 15 seconds (up to you if they float down, or fall). The wand of magic darts works so well, it sparks on firing and blinds everyone looking at it for d4 rounds. After an auspicious start, the bag of holding turns out to be a bag of infinite rats/mice/hamsters/chicks (d12 emerge each round, they push out whatever is put in the bag). The ring of animal speaking comes with a hidden curse: after using it, make a check or you can only speak as that animal for the rest of the day.
4-
Our fourth merchant is a respected merchant who identifies magical items for a reasonable price, and sells potions AND one expensive, very nice magical item, like a Necklace of Fireball. She sends the characters away for the day, promising to identify their magical items by the evening, signing whatever agreement they request--she has a reputation for honesty. When the party returns, her shop is strangely empty and the door unlocked and open. Behind the counter, their items are labeled, the Necklace of Fireballs is in plain sight, there's a box for payment, and if they search, there's a drop or two of blood on the stairs leading up. Do they call the guard? Do they steal and run, and get framed for murder? Do they go upstairs, to brace the monster (mimic? doppelganger?) that has eaten her? THAT ruckus will likely summon the guard; if so, they lose their chance at the Necklace.
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