HIS MAJESTY THE WORM is a new-school game with old-school sensibilities: the classic megadungeon experience given fresh life through a focus on the mundanities and small moments of daily life inside the dungeon.
Coming SOON!
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Joshy McCroo
@riseupcomus
Award-winning TTRPG designer/idiot
Currently working on HIS MAJESTY THE WORM, a tarot-based dungeon crawler - riseupcomus.itch.io
riseupcomus.blogspot.comJoined February 2015
Joshy McCroo’s posts
Pascal's Wager is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of I swear
I am tired of reading RPG pantheons that are Hellenic reskins.
I am tired of reading "And then, MY sun god, Daylor, is good and he hates the undead, but--get this--there's also a god of orcs and he's bad."
Please give me weird, contradictory, and confusing fantasy divinities.
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Whatdya mean that He's created not begotten?!
Dungeoneers kick down wall, find intact Burger King behind it, fully staffed by kobolds.
"Show, don't tell" is great writing advice.
It has limited uses in GMing.
I often find "Telling directly" to be a pretty good technique:
"She seems like she's hiding something."
"This guy is racist."
"You can see a trapped pressure plate."
I like classes that imply something about the world.
A knight is more interesting (to me) than a "fighter."
A Knight of the Pale is more interesting than a generic knight.
A Knight of the Pale wielding a sword of moonshard is more interesting than one wielding a sword of iron
"Ley lines" is the pseudo-scientific concept of British monoliths being connected by deliberate lines. The word "ley" means "meadow."
As the word now has an esoteric bend, I’ve seen RPG books use the word "ley energy," which literally doesn’t mean what I think they want to say.
If you are familiar with the word “geas” from D&D, it might interest you to know that it's a Gaelic word for “taboo.”
In Irish mythology, a geas (pronounced "gaysh") would both grant someone who kept it vigor/magical power, but breaking the geas would spell doom.
Small 🧵
“You suck for a long time and then get to be overpowered” isn’t game balance and I’m tired of pretending it is.
My whole life is an attempt to write a single page of an RPG half as good as the introduction to combat in Unknown Armies
Here’s a🧵of my GM utility belt. These are some of the best supplements I have to run my games, at the table or during prep. Drop yours below to tell me what’s most valuable for you!
Exalted is my “500 hours played, do not recommend” TTRPG. What’s yours?
When you are running a TTRPG, here is a question to ask that can help you get on the same page as your players:
If a PC tried to run along the railing of a bridge, then jump down on an enemy, would he get a bonus, a penalty, or resolve the attack normally?
Little GM tip:
Most players are used to GMs killing characters in their backstory to provoke an emotional reaction.
Try the opposite! Your mother sends you a letter and a beloved childhood trinket. Your former master bequeaths you their sword. Your sister visits!
#ttrpg
As you work on your #dungeon23 projects, I propose Sersa Victory’s Cyclic Dungeon Generator to be as worthy a canon-text on dungeon mapping as Jaquaysing the Dungeon.
(It’s free! Link in comments!)
Watching the dndnext subreddit reinvent 4e in real time has been *wild*.
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It's funny how in recent years the dnd subreddit has evolved into simply wishing 5E had a whole bunch of changes without realizing that 4E was literally everything they are wishing for, and it was a colossal failure.
Coming from a 4E fan: WOTC ain't doing that again
There’s a tremendous generative lift gained by including cool sounding nonsense in your TTRPG. (This is why the “Clone Wars” were cooler before they were explained.)
Put weird combinations of words together and watch your setting pop off.
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Darkvision for some (but not all) PCs creates a wonk experience for dungeons at the table.
“In the darkness, you see a tentacle slither…”
“I HAVE DARKVISION”
If dungeoncrawling is the name of the game, remove darkvision and give different folks different *weird senses*
The Breathing Mermaid problem describes a situation in RPGs where some character ability solves a problem you didn't know you had. "With the Tracking feat, you can track."
Could I not before?
Avoid rules that are defined by negation.
The thing that gets me when people ask questions about RPG settings like, "In a thousand years, did nobody try X" is...no.
A yoke revolutionized modern technology as we know it. For 1000s of years, plow technology was *worse.* The change to a yoke was simple but huge.
My hot take for the day is that I mislike the 5E/PF kitchen sink aesthetic because it has become a self-replicating _thing_ divorced from genre context.
It's not a "system to simulate the sword and sorcery authors we all know and like," it's a "system to simulate D&D itself."
My partner and I talking:
Them: Are you going to kill your players tonight?
Me: I don't determine that, they do. I root for them, but neither try to kill nor save them.
Them: But you’re like God.
Me: I’m more like physics.
Read about half of Etidorhpa this weekend. The images in it are unparalleled brain fuel.
"Oh boy! A +1 sword! I'll factor it into my to-hit bonus and promptly forget about it. Wowee, this is the most magical experience ever!"
+1 swords are boring as shit.
Here's what to do about it.
(Blog post in comments)
There’s a scene in the GRRM book A Feast for Crows that's a good example of “social combat," by which I mean a social puzzle.
A short 🧵about how to use social puzzles in RPGs
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Magic spells that are like “Range 20’ by 20’ square” don’t make magic feel magical.
Spells that reference “All those within the graveyard” or “A creature within a pace of a tree” make the magic feel less a middle school math problem.
The first John Wick uses a great storytelling tool: “I gave him an impossible task...the bodies he buried that night are the foundation of what we are now."
You don't have to tell me what that is. It's better left unsaid.
Do this while running games.
I'm tired of RPGs being like "Ha ha OUR fairies - or 😈fae😈 as we call them - are actually very mysterious and powerful creatures. They do not play by man's laws and can be very cruel."
A fairy named Sunnybeam that sleeps in a flower would be subversive at this point.
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Explicitly NSFW, I Roved Out is a free webcomic of two elves fighting and fucking their way across a landscape with surprising depth. Like, the amount of "Wow, this is such a cool fantasy story" in a NSFW comic is incredible.
(irovedout.com)
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Players: Wait, so I can't actually use my skills because I have massive penalties unless I take a feat that's buried in a tree six feats deep? That's no fun.
The game system:
By default, no NPC should be outright hostile. In The Hobbit, the 3 trolls wanted to let him go (at first). Use Reaction rolls to see if the dragon is hungry, sleepy, or amused. Every encounter is a roleplaying encounter, unless the dice + player actions determine differently.
A SLOT BASED INVENTORY SYSTEM IS JUST A DECK BUILDING SUBSYSTEM SEND TWEET
John Boorman, of Zardoz fame, wrote a film treatment of LotR.
It has many batshit ideas in it, but here's one I kinda like: dwarves have ancestral memory, and can remember the deeds of their ancestors, old passwords, and the paths through forgotten citadels.
I have this printed on my boxers t.co/AVLsbpMsZx
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Daylor, ahHHHHHhhhh
Fighter of the orc-god, ahHHHHhhhh
Champion of the sun
Spell slots never made sense to me until I read Vance and understood the inspiration
This fun fact is less fun than I was led to believe.
Elvish uses geographic directions instead of egocentric ones. They might say "Put the chair down to the east of the other one." By virtue of this, they always pay attention to the cardinal directions and know which way is North.
Dwarves, contrastingly...
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When I started game designing for me and my friends, I was really used to having lots of speed bumps in character progression. I had some ideas for cool powers and abilities, and I put a lot of hoops to jump through to get there.
Banish this impulse.
(1/2)
It's a real shame that the flaming sword has been reduced to a vanilla, boring, stock magic item. In a random Pathfinder game, I might actually be disappointed if the GM gave me one.
A flaming sword has the potential to be *so cool.*
Here's how I'd put the magic back in:
🧵
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The basic gimmick of any metroidvania is that players can see pathways that they don't yet know how to access. This is done through a series of locks and keys.
A simple example of this is a locked room. You must find the key to enter it.
But the principle applies to much more.
I spent years flustered that I couldn't get the genre experience of Frodo and Sam thinking about how much food they needed for their return journey.
I wrote HIS MAJESTY THE WORM to make these subsystems central to the game. Food, light, and encumbrance are easy and fun.
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References in The Hobbit to guns (gun powder and a pop gun) infer that guns exist and were known to Bilbo
Megadungeons are more about a story of a place than characters.
The dungeon existed before the characters, and will persist after them.
Adventurers come in, burn bright as torches, are extinguished, leave. They leave scorch marks.
But the game is the story of the dungeon.
I will never stop singing the praises of restrictions during character creation. Make an all dwarf party. Make an all thief party.
When you stop defining yourself as race + class and need to distinguish your character among a party of the same type, they really come alive.
I once meticulously described the appearance of an NPC - their greasy hair, their woolen tunic, their richly dyed cloak, his rings - but neglected to mention pants. The players called him "Pantsless Man" for the rest of the campaign.
Replying to
"Plan situations, not plots."
"Engage all five senses."
"Be a fan of the characters."
"Talk through your decision making process."
"When learning the rules, rule in favor of the players then send your rules lawyer to look up the real rule."
When a TTRPG rule system organically creates climactic and appropriate story beats, it feels better than a 100 times where fiat or fudging give you the same fictional results.
A critical hit that *kills* the dragon at the critical moment. What a rush!
In last night's RPG session, I described a potion-golem as shaped like the Michelin Man, and a player said "Oh, Bibendum."
I said "What?"
They said, "Oh, the Michelin Man's name was Bibendum, after the Latin phrase Nunc est Bibendum - now is the time to drink."
Secret lore.
When a sci fi setting doesn't have coffee but a black hot beverage called "caf"?
Love that shit.
Free puzzle: In one room, the PCs find a golden apple that says “For the fairest.”
In another, there are four buxom statues: a elf, a dwarf, a human, and a beholder. Each are holding an empty hand (or eyestalk) out.
(1/2)
The idea that a wizard is wise is false.
A wizard empties his head of every thought to make room for spells.
A wizard is a drooling idiot savant. Un-selfreflective. No morals. Only room for a single, driving, pulsing emotion in their limited thoughtspace.
And powerful.
I had a DM who always shit talked (in good fun). “You guys are going down this time.” “You’ll never escape the Demon Queen’s dungeon.”
Anyway one time we ganked his frost giant boss before he even got to act and he had to go outside and cool off a little.
Replying to
You want a wind sword? You want to just be a wolf? You want spider man jumping?
Put those gimmicks at level 1.
Are they powerful? That’s a relative question. Let everybody be powerful in one or two big, weird ways. See how play changes when it’s not all +1s and slow ramp ups.
Here are some lessons that I have taken from Soulsborne games that influence the game I am running of HIS MAJESTY THE WORM:
1) The core gameplay loop is based on strenuous activity punctuated by moments of rest.
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*Youth pastor voice*
But you know who published the FIRST "homebrew" world, right? That's right. Jesus Christ. And I, for one, think the rule book He published is pretty neat. Let's try arguing about the rules in THAT book for two hours every Tuesday, okay gang?
The best GMing advice I have is to be better read than your players (or at least, read different things) so you can blather on about your favorite books and they're like "Wow you're so creative"
Heh heh idiots.
Replying to
Give me a big dead god skull that still grants wishes sometimes
Give me a line of god-kings who are obviously just opulent human dudes but can ABSOLUTELY kill you through proprietary magic
Give me animal deities
Give me a Blasphemous-style arbitrary divine punishment
One weird trick GMs hate!
On your backstory, write that your character starts at a much higher level!
There's nothing they can do! It's *your* backstory!
“Why should I spend $ on your game?”
The thing I wish I could help Johnny RPGfan understand is that I’m just trying to find folks who like the sorta thing I’m making. If you like it, great! If not, that’s okay.
I’m not, uh, making a lot of money here.
Never write a BBEG you wouldn't mind winning and having a campaign about the consequences.
Don't introduce Sauron if you don't want to play Midnight.
Choosing bonus languages in standard D&D games is the worst. Either your choice matters a lot or it matters not at all.
There's lots of ways to handle this, but I prefer my languages to have some *sizzle*.
Blog post in the comments.
Hexcrawls are the result of an alchemical combination of curated, random factors at the table. These are more reusable and exciting than meticulously planned/balanced combat encounters.
It's like DJing. Prepping a hexcrawl is like getting your setlist put together.
A 🧵
I think prophecies are hard to do in TTRPGs. If the GM knows what's going to happen and the players have no choice, it feels unsatisfying. If the players are involved, *anything* can happen.
Character abilities that deal w/ the future work best as questions. If this, then what?
When RPG books specify things like “Bridge is immune to psychic damage” is drives me up a fucking wall.
Replying to
Giving the apple to the beholder reveals a secret cache of treasure in its eye. Because beauty is in the eye of the beholder!
(My players just sold the apple, so I’m revealing this puzzle’s secrets here.)
(2/2)
Fun fact: HIS MAJESTY THE WORM was written from notes I jotted down waiting for other players, *especially* during shopping sessions.
The City Phase is a breeze. Buy a lifestyle. Fill your pack with items of that level or lower. No nickel and diming shopping lists. 5 min task!
Here's something that grinds my gears: Using homebrew to refer to RPG material not created by the publisher.
RPGs are *about* making your own characters, world, and content. They're Legos.
Running your own campaign isn't homebrewing it's...just playing the game.
Beowulf already gave us the three tiers of play.
First, you are attacked by a monster in a meadhouse. Low-level play is defending a tavern.
Second, you track a monster down in a lake cave. Mid-level play is outdoor survival.
Third, a dragon attacks your kingdom. Domain play.
Bakshi Elrond is E tier Elrond. Looks like a gym coach who is tired of teaching driver's ed.
It's so funny watching the 5E community discover past editions in real time
There are two types of people.
People who thought I was talking about Skyrim and people who thought that I was talking about magic-users.
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“You suck for a long time and then get to be overpowered” isn’t game balance and I’m tired of pretending it is.
The best traps are:
- Thoroughly investigated
- Prodded
- Then walked into anyway
- And all the players say OF COURSE when the GM describes what happens
Talking about RPGs generically instead of a specific RPG is rough online. You can say like “I got rid of Initiative and it was the best thing I ever did,” and someone else is stunned. They’ve never had any problems with initiative. Why would you do this? It's an attack on THEM.
Remember Stephen Biesty's Cross-sections books? I love them.
I made a d66 table of level 0 characters for you to use for games like DCC, LotFP, GLoG, or whatever using one of the pictures from the Cross-Section Castle book.
When thinking about fantasy races, you can get some added lift from thinking about what folks can’t do as much as they can’t. Dwarves aren’t “humans but short and tough.” Dwarves don’t domesticate animals because they literally can’t. Just aren’t wired to do it.
My transition into Calvin's dad was so seamless I didn't even notice it
How to make magical items feel more magical?
+1 swords are boring. I talked about that before. Can we apply the principle of "active, fantastic magic" to other common magic items?
How do you feel like a *badass* with a flaming sword?
Blog link in the comments.
I very much miss the era of 80s fantasy movies. Sometimes they were corny, yeah, but they weren’t ironic or tongue-in-cheek, and that’s something missing from modern fantastic movies.
This is, coincidentally, also what dwarf beard ribbons mean
The thing I don't like about games with builds is it prioritizes the work done outside of game over the play at the table.
Making character builds can be fun, sure.
But it's not fun to lose a fight because you didn't find the hidden combos before the actual game.
Top 9 names in Tolkien
9. Bingo Bolger-Baggins
8. Tinfang Warble
7. Radbug
6. Daddy Twofoot
5. Túna
4. Wetwang
3. Teleporno
2. Fatty Bolger
1. Fatty Lumpkin
When you have a hex crawl map with mountains and fields and swamps and stuff, it sorta feels like you could use a M:tG-esque system.
Mana is accumulated over days or weeks of travel. Need to cast Remove Disease? Head down to the plains to spend a few days gathering white mana.
How do you reveal the lore and backstory of a dungeon? A🧵
One piece of advice I have is to not hide your cool ideas. If you think your lore is cool, show it off - you can just TELL it to the players.
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