Ethereal Games

The last post gave a basic outline for the first scene or adventure in my solo game play of  Gaming Primitive  RPG. In this post, I have added a description of the Snow Warrior, and even consider how to use one as a player character. I then developed a Snow Warrior random name table for male and female names, and the names of Snow Warrior places and deities. In the spirit of keeping this part of a light rules system, it is a d6 table. All of this will start to bring the Escape from Dlatanes scene closer to the gaming table. So, what exactly is the new anthropoid I called the Snow Warrior? In the Foes section of Gaming Primitive on page 42 is a description of Apes which is at least useful to describe the physicality of Snow Warriors. Since I was going for something more akin to the sophistication of a Neanderthal, the description is lacking in some areas. The Snow Warrior is not a jungle or tree dweller, but more of an archaic human of human-like ancestor. It lives in tribes c...

During Covid, I acquired a massive collection of games, largely PDFs, but I have been a poor player of them. Or, perhaps I have always desired a way to play RPGs alone. So, I have read up and tried to learn how to play solo RPGs with various oracle engines including small ones, and big ones such as Mythic, various random table books, ideas from games like Micro RPG or Four Against Darkness, and some other self-storytelling techniques. I finally reached a point where I stopped collecting, and I decided I have enough tools to finally embark on my own solo game. The first step in this journey is the character, and what the first adventure is going to be about. I may apply different tools as I go and share what I use. It is my first attempt at doing this, so I will post my progress little by little. For this, I wanted to choose a set of rules that would allow me to really personalize my characters and be very open to applying various RPG mechanics and tools, as I felt were needed to make a...

It is wrong to say that old school table top RPGs and the original old edition games were and are poor simulations that chart players on a course to some pretentious make believe journey because they are based on poorly researched quasi-medieval settings. Role playing games run deeper than that, and here's how.  The original edition of the most popular RPG was largely inspired by literature. You've got Tolkien in there with other human "races" such as Elves and Dwarves and others, you've got Burroughs references to creatures in an alternate universe where Mars is habitable, you've got a Vancian style world where powerful magic is possible, you've got magical beasts thrown in helter skelter from various traditions and literature, and so on. These writer's who inspired the original D&D were themselves inspired by other story tellers, and even the world of Icelandic myths is seen directly in Tolkien. Burroughs does as well - although often the sources...