Xyntillan - More to do because Roll20 has added useful things (OSR) [Minor Spoiler]

After yesterday’s post, I had a short call with Graham to test that I’d set up all the dynamic lighting correctly from a player’s perspective, and once I’d enabled vision for the token and assigned it to him, everything worked fine, which was really nice to see. We checked out lighting, whether the doors (secret or otherwise) worked, and whether the GM text was invisible. All good, which was a relief as it’s taken nearly two years and three Christmas breaks to get this far.

The OSE character sheet worked fine, which means that so long as I had my copy of Castle Xyntillan to hand, it’s good to go. 

However, then I noticed the new map pin feature that’s in beta on Roll20. This allows you to drag a handout to a location and have it appear as a pin as shown above. You can choose whether it is completely hidden or visible to the players. The example above is completely hidden (given away by the dotted line around the tool tip) but a simple click would reveal the text that isn’t blue-grey to the players. The blue-grey text is the GM hidden information on the handout. 

This is fantastically useful; as you can see above, I have the put a short description(*) there so I can immediately set the scene for the players, and I can see some of what may happen in the room below. I say some, because presently, the tool tip doesn’t scroll, but there’s enough to get me away.

(*) By short description, I mean the whole description as this is an OSR module and there’s not any fluff in the text.

This will make running the game so much slicker, I think that I need to add it in. It shouldn’t take too long, as I have the PDF, but it does need me to do this for every location!

I do think that Roll20 have really picked up the pace of their development. There’s lots of useful things (like the dynamic lighting for a page being in the main menu now, and the GM being able to change lighting settings with a simple right click on a token, and players being able to open their character sheets with a right click on their token, and auto-measurement of distance being live when moving tokens…) starting to appear and the VTT as a whole feels fresher and faster. Now, if only they could get AV properly stable…

24 December 2025

The gates of Castle Xyntillan beckon (OSR)

Beyond the small town of Tours-en-Savoy, the road passing through the mountains branches.

Most travellers cross themselves and press onwards, hoping to reach the small priory on the pass before sundown, and continue towards Rüti Canton and its merchant towns. Yet some, mostly the foolhardy and the less than scrupulous, take the less travelled road climbing through the shadowy pine forests and into the silent mountains. There, after two days of travel, lies the Valley of the Three Rainbows, and on the shores of a crystal-clear lake, the crumbling parapets and fantastic towers of Castle Xyntillan.

How long the immense, ragtag building complex has stood is not known, only that it was erected on the remains of a much older structure. The masters of Xyntillan, the Malévol family, have ruled the province since Charlemagne and perhaps earlier, each generation adding to Xyntillan in its own way. Their corruption, and curious habits which have never put them on good footing with the Bishop of Chamrousse, has long haunted their reputation, leading to their spiritual and material decline. At last, the current head of the family, Jean-Giscard Malévol, decided to move to his smaller but less costly and considerably more fashionable summer palace in Chamrousse, and abandon his family nest to time and the elements.

However, that was not the end of the story, for Xyntillan’s fabulous treasures and Machiavellian deathtraps have fascinated the fortune-seekers of a dozen lands – and never mind the ghost stories.

Introduction to Castle Xyntillan, p7

 

After lots of starts and stops, I've finally completed building Castle Xyntillan in Roll20. This is a large dungeon made for Swords & Wizardry for characters of level 1 to 6. I think I made this harder than I needed to, as I decided to set up dynamic lighting because I think it gives a much more creepy effect, which is right for exploring a (somewhat) abandoned chateau. 

It's been a bit of a learning curve, but it's almost there. The only decision I need to make now is whether to add the key characters into the Roll20 journal so I can just drag and drop them in. The biggest challenge I managed to create for myself was managing to put the maps on the Token Layer not the Map layer, but that was fixed quickly one I realised what had happened.

I've set this up to use Old-School Essentials because I like that rule set (and early D&D is pretty much interchangeable on the fly). I could see it being pretty fun for Shadowdark too, if that floats your boat more. 

This is one of those perennial projects that I dig into over the Christmas period. Speaking with Graham, it's kind of like the West March thoughts he gets. However, somehow I've managed to get the key bit over the line! I have to do a couple more tests, but hopefully I've now got a potential open house dungeon to use irregularly through the year.

I like the idea of a game with slightly less pressure for people to be there all the time. 

Do you have gaming projects you dig into over the festive periods, only for them to get set aside for the rest of the year?

23 December 2025

Facebook, meh.

I don't like Facebook.

I use it because some of the active communities for gaming spaces are there, and also there are family and friends that I find easiest to reach there. The kind of folks who suggesting something like Mastodon or MeWe would get a blank look from.

Messenger has been a key way of communicating with those folks (although I use SMS/RCS/iMessage and WhatsApp much more commonly with the folks I talk to more).

Meta have just killed the desktop version of the Messenger App, meaning you need to go into Facebook to message folks or use the mobile app. Kind of frustrating.

I managed to typo my PIN for encrypted messages when I went to the web interface, so it gives you a 15 min wait before you can try to restore chat history again. And a scary '4 more tries message'.

While I'm waiting, here's a book recommendation:

Sarah Wynn-Williams' autobiography on her time with Facebook is quite revealing and Meta has tried to cancel her as a result. She's not allowed to promote the book due to an injunction. Publisher info on the book here. The first third of the book, I was shocked with her naivety, the rest I was feeling for her and increasingly shocked.

It doesn't make me like Facebook any better.

21 December 2025

What if the Satanic Panic never happened? - a UK response to a Grognardia post.

In a recent post on Grognardia, James Maliszewski pondered on what would have happened if the Satanic Panic about D&D never happened. Did it drive sales or did it drive some people away? (Probably both). Did parents discourage or encourage people to play?

I posted a brief response in the comments on his blog, but here's an expanded version.

I was fortunate that, despite growing up in a practicing Roman Catholic household where mass every Sunday was non-negotiable, my parents had open minds. They encouraged me to read widely, with library membership from a young age, and my father passed on his love of SF and fantasy novels (although he never read 'The Lord of the Rings' until after I did. I started to explore wargames, and then found out about roleplaying games from a magazine article and a library book that I talked about previously. My mother picked up a copy of Holmes Basic D&D from a local gift store for a Christmas Gift from my Aunt for me, and I bought myself the Games Workshop box set of Call of Cthulhu 2nd Edition, having failed to find a copy of either the little black books or Starter Set for Traveller. 

There was no pushback or resistance to me getting or playing these, and I started with a few games with friends locally before I started secondary school. I felt encouraged to do this. I only ever ran once for my family - a one-to-one Cthulhu session with the starter haunted house scenario with my father, who approached it very brutally (he blew the house up). What I didn't realise was that he had - in the past - got quite disturbed when he was reading books by Dennis Wheatley, which was the reason there was no horror in his otherwise fantastic library of genre paperbacks. He later told me the game brought back unhappy memories of that experience. However, it didn't stop him encouraging me.

Living in the UK, I started secondary school the same year that the Stranger Things kids started High School, and the Satanic Panic was something heard of and commented on but really something in the USA for us. My school was a faith one, a Catholic Comprehensive, so you'd have thought that if there was going to be any resistance, you'd see it there. But I didn't. The school actually supported me setting up a club - aged 12 - to play RPGs every lunchtime. We kicked off with Basic D&D and Call of Cthulhu but rapidly were into Traveller and more. Very soon we had a group of kids and several games masters. The school was always positive and supportive (and we ran several charity fundraising drives related to gaming). 

My Religious Education teacher, a rock and metal fan, was particularly supportive, having previously been involved in gaming via a sibling and university. Thank you, Miss Smith/Mrs Birch for supporting me in something that's stayed with me my whole life!

Overall, when people raised the question of the Satanic Panic it was quietly dealt with, and we never saw a blocker. We were just the geeks who were playing games at lunch like the Chess Club did, except back then no-one used the term 'geeks'.

The encouragement to explore roleplaying and the freedom to take responsibility for setting up and running a club helped build confidence, belief and engagement for me. I can only thank my parents and teachers for their support in doing this as it shaped my life and gave me something I continue to enjoy.

Where you supported or did you have barriers for your gaming life? Did you start more recently? What brought you into this space?

20th December 2025

First Impressions - Deck of Worlds - Worlds of Chrome and Starlight (SF)

I picked up the Deck of Worlds during the recent promos (you know, Black Friday, nearly Christmas etc.) as it's been something that intrigued me. Now, although I've put it away until later in the month, I decided to experiment with the SF expansion as that wasn't shrink wrapped and I was pretty curious.

Deck of Worlds is a GM/writing aide designed to get the creative juices going either by building a location randomly or by making choices having looked at the cards that you've drawn. It's a follow on from the Story Engine Deck(*) which did something similar for creating plots and stories.

(*) The Story Engine Deck always confuses me as the logo looks like the Story Engine RPG logo but it's completely unrelated)

 

There are six different types of card, each of which serves a different purpose. Using the example above, I'll talk through the differences.

1. Regions - these define the broad brush scope of the area you're looking at. In the case above, fallout is the region type, implying that there is some form of contamination in play.
2. Landmarks are found within regions. It's worth saying that I've nested these all together, but the example given in the box set is to generate a region, and then landmarks to go within it. Anyway, we have a colony with cisterns which is close to an anomaly. Three landmarks in a region of fallout.
3. Origins cards define significant events in the past. In this case the fallout region is the site of terraforming incident, and the colony was founded by a political splinter group.
4. Attribute cards add present day relevant features, in this case the anomaly is a source of precious fuel and a valuable industrial material.
5. Namesakes are ways of adding nicknames or more details. In this case, the colony is a place without privacy and the anomaly is fractal and self-sustaining.
6. Advent cards drive events that could change the area's future. In this case the colony has an important power source running out. Drawing a namesake card indicates that this is nuclear. A second advent card indicates that there has been a shocking data breach that exposed private secrets. In a colony without privacy, what could that be?!

I did a mix of random draws and selections to build the colony above, and I'm pleased with how it came out. I think I could build out a scenario or two from those inputs for Traveller or Star Trek Adventures. 

Let's try a second one.

This time, we have two adjacent regions - some craters with floes nearby. In my head, these are linked. The craters are the location that the first shot of the Great War was fired, an orbital strike. They're visible from space, and recent drilling at the location has broken into something shocking, and a silo of something dangerous is starting to leak fumes. There is a solar observatory at the craters, the hiding spot of world ending tech (perhaps linked to the orbital strike and silo?) and the landscape is irradiated and blasted. The observatory is infamous as the site of a terrible experiment involving plasma technology.

The floes have an unusual geothermal vent, and something about the floe region has resulted in a signal dead zone. However, a mysterious signal is now being received from the area - is it an energy pulse showing pre-war technologies reactivating, a message or a distress signal.

Again, I think that this would be really easy to extend into Traveller or Star Trek Adventures scenario.

So my first impression of these cards from the Deck of Worlds is that they will be really useful.

It's available here.

14 December 2025

(3rd attempt due to Blogger issues).

Traveller - Porting Traveller to D&D5e, a thought experiment

On the 27th November 2025, Mongoose Publishing put the cat amongst the pigeons by announcing that they intended to bring out a D&D 5E edition of the game. 

This immediately led to panic (OMG are they abandoning Traveller's Engine) to vitriol (I hate 5E, why are you doing this) to more sanguine takes (This is good for the game as it will grow sales). Personally, I'm more in the latter box, and for me Traveller is the world's greatest roleplaying game. The previous D&D-engined Traveller T20 didn't harm the game and had some decent supplements (for example the Gateway campaign), plus it used High Guard as the basis for its starships.

Which led me to wonder how I would do this to maximise compatibility between the two editions.

1) Attributes

For these, I'd simply rename them in line with Traveller's conventions. You'd have to move the nobility thresholds for a 3D6 distribution, but otherwise it's pretty similar.

2) Hit Points

These are a sum of the physical attributes as usual; so a Traveller would start a little stronger on average. There would be limited opportunities to increase these.

3) Skills

I'd keep the skill levels in line with Traveller and they would come from your life path / career generation. If you have no skill in an area, you roll with disadvantage unless you have Jack-of-all-Trades (which may only ever be a single level or perhaps something like a feat that comes from a career path).

Need to reconsider how task chains would work when helping.

4) Careers and Terms

This is one of the big changes I'd make. The number of terms you serve in your career determines your level and the number of skills, mustering out elements, attribute mods you get. Serve two terms and you're Level 2, serve 9 terms and you're Level 9. Aging works as usual (you get to make a save based on a D20 DC target). Once you level up, that's the end of most skill development (it goes slowly like it does in core Traveller and you can accrue XP through training etc to get the next level).

I'd consider whether you get a general proficiency bonus in a career based on the levels you have in it. I think that would make sense, like a professional skill.

5) Combat / Guns etc.

I'd keep these the same stat-wise - hit points are on the same scale. Probably have some damage effect levels like core Traveller. Armour would affect damage as current with the only AC mods coming from dexterity.

6) Starships etc.

Again, I'd keep these the same and just adjust the skill rolls. 

7) Psionics

I'd likely treat these a bit like feats - you'd spend PSI to activate. May need to raise the cost slightly to align.

8) Conversion table

I'd have a simple table to map attributes between 2D6 and 3D6 scales.

Anyway, that's how I'd approach it from a top level perspective. A D&D 5E recognisable version that would be easy to hot swap material between system versions.

What would you do if you were designing a D&D 5E version?

9 December 2025

Books in November 2025

November 2025 saw me read 8 books, for a total of 3,013 pages, bringing me to a total of 106 books and 28,646 pages for the year. My page count was hugely skewed by the Lucifer graphic novel omnibus which is over a third of those pages.

I finished the final two of Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries, System Collapse and Fugitive Telemetry. I really enjoyed them and I'll be keeping an eye out for the next book in the series when it comes out. Highly recommended.

I also read The Persian by David McCloskey. This is the latest espionage novel from the author of Damascus Station. It's very different to the previous books, as it's exploring the experience of a Persian expatriate with Swedish citizenship who becomes drawn into the conflict between Iran and Israel. Most of the story is told from the perspective of a confession. Quite a hard, but good read.

This month's book club read from Contact by Carl Sagan. I have to confess I've never seen the movie so was going in cold. I struggled with Sagan’s writing style for the first three quarters of the book but the end section lifted it hugely, overall making it worth the time. Some fascinating ideas. Part of the reason I joined the book club was to try and make myself read some of the books I wouldn’t otherwise, which seems to be working out.

I read Raven, which is a gothic horror roleplaying game and very intriguing. I'm not certain about it, so I decided to dig into some Edgar Allan Poe (an author who I haven't touched since I was a teenager), listening to an audio collection of readings of his works by Basil Rathbone and Vincent Price to try and get with the vibe. I'm now reading the scenario book that goes with Raven to try and get a better feel for how the game should go. I like it but the scenarios seem very formally structured which leaves them a little cold in feel.

Before the Poe collection, I had worked my way through Daniela Richterova's Watching the Jackals, which is all about the interactions between the Czechoslovakian Secret Service and Palestinian terrorists and revolutionaries. It's pretty dry with a tendency for long words and repetition (it feels like it was written as a set of essays that have been linked together rather than a whole narrative) but pretty informative and interesting.

I finished the month diving into the first Lucifer Omnibus graphic novel. Weighing in at over 1,000 pages, I enjoyed this a lot. Mike Carey tells a gripping and fascinating tale of the fallen angel, building on what was done in The Sandman by Gaiman. Certainly the longest book in terms of page count that I've read this year!

6 December 2025