NEW BLOG

Since I'm expanding away from just the one game, I decided to make a new blog that covers all my projects

IRONIC HERO GAMES

https://ironicherogames.blogspot.com/

I'll be posting there from now on. I plan on posting more often and with more content.

Thanks for your continued patronage!

Probabilities, Stratagems, and Solutions

So on RPG.net, the actual probabilities of success in my game Barbarians of Academia have finally been plotted out. (Thanks to Naeddyr for the code and Ficino for actually bringing up the question)

It looks like this:

(click to expand)

Note: I rounded the numbers to get rid of decimals, as it makes it easier for me to compare. The dark bar across for the 10 row is because of a weird quirk in the rules that makes it literally impossible to roll under an 11 once you've had three or more drinks. All the other 0% squares are actually numbers that are just below 0.5%. It's still possible to roll successfully, just very unlikely.

SOME THINGS:

The 11% Thing
I don't actually have a problem with this. If you've put 10% in a skill, you weren't planning on using it much anyway.

You're Better With Two Drinks Than One
Tenure is on the line. You're nervous. Of course after a couple of drinks you can relax and focus. Two-drinks-in is always the best way to approach a problem.

The Incompetence Thing
So this overall number pattern was exactly what I was going for - skills would go down as you drank more, and the chance of passing out would go up. However, I'm a little surprised by exactly how fast a score goes from good to completely abysmal.

The more I look at it though, the more I don't mind how quickly things go to hell. It kinda reinforces the overall absurdity of the premise. It's interesting to see what strategies will come out of this...

Maybe these?

MURDEROUS RAMPAGE

You max out BRUTAL VIOLENCE at 99 and leave WITTY BANTER at 1.
You'll never convince the the T.A. or the Wealthy Alumnus to do anything, but the other Barbarians can't either, if you've already killed them.

"Kill who?" you may ask, "The NPCs or the other Barbarians?"
If you didn't realize the answer was "ALL OF THEM!" maybe this strategy isn't for you.

Remember, you don't have to convince the Dean's Wife to sleep with you, and you don't have to convince the Performance Artist to let you chop his arm off, you just spend actions. And with 99%, even with a bunch of drinks in you, you'll be a pretty well-off when it comes time to slay Yog Sothoth. Just don't kill the Dean, and don't let him see you hurt anyone. There's going to be a lot of body-hiding with this strategy.

ABJECT, COWARDLY MANIPULATION

The opposite: WITTY BANTER: 99   BRUTAL VIOLENCE: 1
There's a lot you can accomplish with the peaceful approach. You can talk your way into and out of a lot of stuff, just don't let the other Barbarians kill you. Stay around the Dean and you'll probably be safe until Yog Sothoth shows up. Do the rules say you can't just CONVINCE Yog Sothoth to go away? Nope. You can't change the Sorceress's mind, but it's up to your GM whether or not you can argue a pan-dimensional entity out of bringing about Armageddon.

I'd let my players try it.

THE BALANCING ACT

Both Scores 50%, or maybe 60/40
Try to hit every goal, using both scores. You won't want to exceed 4 drinks or drop below 2. Maybe the most difficult method, but you'll have the highest number of goals you could actually achieve. I'd love to see how this strategy works out when other players are using one of the first two.

SOME PEOPLE JUST WANT TO WATCH THE WORLD BURN

Maybe tenure isn't all it's cracked up to be. March up to the Dean and decapitate him. Fight wave after wave of Campus Security. Join up with the Sorceress - they say Yog Sothoth grants his followers powers and pleasure beyond their wildest dreams!

Is this how the game was intended to be played? Well, it wasn't not how the game was intended to be played. It's a role-playing game. Your imagination is the only limit!

OTHER IDEAS

You could, were you the GM, give the players more points to start out. Having the players start with 120 or 140 points to distribute at character creation would lead to a lot less whiffing once the drinks started pouring.

You could instead (or also) institute a character advancement mechanic: After a Barbarian successfully completes a goal, roll 1d10 and add that to one of their scores. Or have them add 1d10 points to a score whenever they fail a roll with it.

All of these alternatives and strategies will be included in UNEARTHED ACADEMIA: Alternative Rules For Barbarians of Academia. 

-COMING THIS SUMMER!

Calling the Cops

There was a question on RPG.net about the rules of Barbarians of Academia and the calling of outside people (security, Bill's Ex-Wife, etc.)

Here are the rules I made up for that.

Calling a person on the phone is an automatic ACTION and starts a countdown timer. For campus security, they get there 2 rounds later - so if you call someone on your turn during the 9:00 round, the GM will start a countdown on the Round Tracker and security will get there (place tokens in the entrance hall) at the beginning of the GM's turn of the 9:30 round.

If someone calls Bill's Ex-Wife for some reason, she will arrive 4 rounds later. (So if she's called at 10:00, she'll arrive at the beginning of 11:00)

Both members of Campus Security and Bill's Ex-Wife have one HIT each.

Both members of Campus Security and Bill's Ex-Wife roll all skills at 25%

Both members of Campus Security and Bill's Ex-Wife are carrying a handgun (one HIT per successful attack)

The personalities of Campus Security #1 and #2 are to be based on your favorite comedy duo (Abbot and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, Burns and Allen, Garfunkel and Oates, etc.)

Oh, and Bill's Ex-Wife is named Doreen.

Barbarians of Academia

I've gone and created something else.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/273717/Barbarians-of-Academia

There was a thread on RPG.net about Ron Edward's Sorcerer & Sword.  At some point someone used Conan as a college professor to make a point about genre.

I was inspired.

I think I'm prouder of Tales of the Obsidian Idol when it comes to craft and playability, but I think this game more accurately expresses the swirling whirlwind of stupid ideas that is my mind.

I've Released My Baby Into The World

So I put Tales of the Obsidian Idol up on Drive Thru RPG last week. Also posted it to the Dungeon World MeWe and it was then posted to the DW Discord Server (Thanks Yochai Gal!)

So far, a lot of positive feedback.

Of course, a couple of days later I see a really obvious typo (I left the “r” out of “describe”). Updated the file this morning. Very embarrassing.

The knowledge that people I’ve never met have downloaded my game is a lot more exciting than I even thought it would be.

Not exciting as finding out someone actually played it, but…

What is this?

I'm starting this blog as a place to discuss my various projects - both literary and rpg.

I've just created a new game called Tales of the Obsidian Idol, a PbtA game that started as a Dungeon World hack but...mutated.

I plan on posting the game online soon, so I thought it would be useful to have somewhere people could contact me about opinions, questions, glaring mistakes, etc.

I'll also be running five sessions of the game at this years Comicpalooza in Houston, so I'll be updating on that as well.

While I'm at it, I might as well post some of my original writings as well, for those who are interested.

More later.