The Gaming Den

@tussock, don't forget in the 60s you have near universal access to flame proof and insulating asbestos, as well as long lasting and bright leaded paint! Why even your children's toys could have both!

But yeah, FatR, I get your setting. Things are easy so people don't get levels, so high level magic gets lost because nobody can cast it, attrition sets in and eventually you lose magic items and magic infrastructure that need a high level caster to make to vandalism, sabatoge, and natural disasters, and every year sucks just a little bit more than last year, until even when you do farm because your create food and water trap was broken in a raid you don't even have access to plant growth to make your harvests bountiful, to say nothing of having control weather to make sure your crops get the right amount of rain.

I haven't posted here since forever, but that doesn't mean I haven't updated the game. Here's the link to the latest version:
https://yadi.sk/d/EDAdisq63HWXjA

No setting updates whatsoever, beyond what can be gleaned from monster descriptions, as I don't have much time at the present and the actual setting I'm running is heavily tailored to specific tastes of my current party.

But plenty of mechanical content. The original class clusters (magic-users and martial artists) are now playable to level 14, with enough written monsters to give them something to do and some degree of actual playtesting in that range. The new class cluster (that started as Exalted-ripoffs and ended up with transformative-style powers after multiple rewrites - Exalted rules really do suck even as an inspiration) is not really wholly playable, and mostly serves as a proof of concept and a tool of NPC generation so far.

One question I have for TGD - does anyone ever pay real attention to the "Organization" entry in the monster statblocks? It is useless for myself, it does not actually interact with any mechanic (as "No. Appearing" in D&D/AD&D did) and as every monster has enough description to give a GM a general idea about it social organization, should it even be there?

Yes. I use the organization entry when I find a cool monster I want to try to include in an upcoming game, and want to know what you might find them with. For example the Orge Mage

Organization: Solitary, pair, or troupe (1-2 plus 2-4 ogres)

I know it is a solo monster but keeps a couple of ogres around it. It generally isn't like an elven band which is apparently a shit load of people.

Squad (2-4), company (11-20 plus 2 3rd-level sergeants and 1 leader of 3rd-6th level), or band (30-100 plus 20% noncombatants plus 1 3rd-level sergeant per 10 adults, 5 5th-level lieutenants, and 3 7th-level captains)

The elven one tells me relative NPC power levels. An elven band has 30-100 level 1 warriors, 20% of that are retainers, 3+ 3rd level guys, exactly 5 5th level dudes, and 3 7th level leaders.

Its nice worldbuilding details. I can certainly wing it, but this at least tells me, or a new player version of me, what my wing it targets should look like.

A short organization entry is useful as a way to communicate how the monster is best used as while skimming through stuff. Knowing that Monster ABA is supposed to be fought by itself is useful information, while knowing that monster ZXZ is a pack hunter and operates in groups of 3-7 helps DMs use the monsters.

In addition, if you want to get exotic, you can always include other monsters or people in the Organization entry as suggestions for how they might be used or as semi-prepackaged interesting encounters.

I was only able to see the races document at the link you shared, FatR. Am I doing something wrong?

Love me some organization entries, especially if it includes other creatures or the unit names reveal something about the social structure.

pragma wrote:I was only able to see the races document at the link you shared, FatR. Am I doing something wrong?

No, more likely I did something wrong. The updated link should work now.