Category: role-playing (Page 2 of 6)

DCC Middle-Earth: Too Much Noodling?

October 28, 2025 / / 0 Comments

I know I JUST posted something about my ideas for a homebrewed DCC-based Middle Earth role-playing game, but now I’m starting to doubt all my noodling and tinkering. Why use DCC’s rules and characters if I’m going to change so many mechanics? (Like combat/damage rules, etc.)

Better to stick with the DCC rules-set and add on a few things (still looking at a Pendragon-style Hope/Despair trait) but keeping the general mechanics as-is. Even though I like Cairn and Nimble 2e’s roll for damage and not to-hit mechanic, it just messes up too many other aspects of DCC that I DO like (like the Deed Die, Turning Evil, etc.).

The real alterations need to be in terms of setting-specific things, like patrons, spells, etc. And using another game’s overland travel rules to capture how important traveling is to the Middle-Earth experience.

But whether we roll to hit or just roll for damage or whatever feels less important. What matters in a Middle-Earth-specific DCC game is making it suited to MIDDLE-EARTH through flavor details, magic, etc., and not worrying about which OSR or NuSR-style mechanic I’ll be using for combat or ability checks.

I need to work on world-building for a Middle-Earth setting and stop trying to Frankenstein all my favorite mechanics into one game.

More Middle-Earth RPG Noodling

October 26, 2025 / / 1 Comment

Making my Middle-Earth role-playing game heartbreaker using DCC RPG as the chassis and adding in various other elements from games like The One Ring, Nimble 2e, Dolmenwood, Shadowdark, MERP, Pendragon, and others has been both exhilarating and dispiriting, often in equal measures.

As I got deep into the weeds of character stats, magic systems, Luck/Hope/Despair mechanics, I was suddenly left wondering if maybe I should just learn The One Ring after all and call it a day. Why fight the system that everyone seems to agree “gets” Tolkien the best?

But my Middle-Earth RPG isn’t trying to capture TOLKIEN’s Middle-Earth; it’s trying to capture MY Middle-Earth: the one that I created as a kid via various versions including the Tolkien books, and cartoon movies, and other fantasy-related games, books, and media, and the aforementioned MERP, and my own ten-year-old imagination.

I want a Middle-Earth RPG that’s more 1960s “Frodo Lives” counter-culture and 1970s and 80s American fantasy publishing and Angus McBride MERP illustrations. That’s why I settled on DCC RPG as the main rule-set for my homebrew. DCC gives the right vibes of loose-goosey, pre-codified Dungeons and Dragons generic fantasy that feels right for how I imagine my own head-cannon Middle-Earth.

The One Ring, for all its virtues, is very much in line with the aesthetics and interpretation of Tolkien’s legendarium post-Jackson’s film trilogy. It’s got that WETA Workshop feeling–and listen, I love that WETA Workshop feeling! But I want something different for my homebrew game. I want something that takes me back to my kid days, when Middle-Earth wasn’t so “fixed” in everybody’s minds (including my own). It’s hard to describe this “kid-version” of Middle-Earth, but it was somehow more fluid, more malleable. My imagined Middle-Earth was more of a hodge-podge, and as good as the Peter Jackson films are, and as beautiful as Alan Lee’s and Ted Nasmith’s illustrations are, they aren’t my head-version of Middle-Earth.

Anyway, despite my frustrations, I don’t want to abandon my attempts. I’m a bit stuck on the Hope/Despair mechanic and how it will work. I want it to be similar to the Luck mechanic in DCC, but I’ve been toying with using Pendragon’s personality traits mechanic, where Hope and Despair are two opposed scores that add up to 20. If Hope is 10, Despair is 10; if Hope is 13, Despair is 7; etc.

But then what happens if a player spends Hope? Hope goes down, Despair goes up. This might disincentivize players from using Hope (a la Luck), which is one of my favorite DCC mechanics.

No. The Despair score needs to be something else.

This is where I thought maybe Despair might replace the DCC mechanic of Disapproval. Players start with Disapproval of 1, and it goes up by one point each time a character…what? Fails a Hope check? Falls unconscious? Hmm.

That’s the sticking point. In normal DCC, Disapproval goes up if a Cleric fails a spell check. But in my Middle-Earth homebrew, I’m considering getting rid of spell checks and using a mana point system for magic instead. So when does Disapproval/Despair go up?

This has led me back to Pendragon’s personality traits. Perhaps I keep DCC’s Luck mechanic as-is. Players can spend Luck and it works the same as the rules as written in DCC.

But in addition to Luck, there’s now a Hope/Despair trait. Players start with a base of 12 for Hope and 8 for Despair. They can make a Hope check right from the get-go in character creation, and if they roll under 12, they can add +1 to their Hope score.

Mechanically, players can ask for a Hope check at any time to help them on their journey. Maybe they need something really good to happen that can’t be covered by any other rule or mechanic, like they are in a tricky spot against an overwhelming number of goblins. They can ask to make a Hope check, and if it succeeds, then something good does happen–maybe a tunnel gets spotted that allows the party to escape the goblins, or one of the goblins gets too cocky and accidentally trips himself and several of his comrades. Maybe everyone in the party gets +2 to armor class or something during the fight. The player making the Hope check can decide in conversation with the GM. Later, after the session, they make a Hope check again, and a success means Hope goes up by one point (and Despair down by one).

But if the Hope roll during the game fails, then the player must put a check mark next to Despair, and at the end of the session, they make a Despair check, and success makes Despair go up (and Hope go down).

When Despair is higher than Hope, the player falls under the Shadow… not sure how this will work yet. Maybe I make this more of a role-playing thing and less mechanical. As Despair increases, the player must play their character as falling further and further under the sway of the Shadow, and that means they become more Denethor-like, or even Saruman-like. At some point, the PC might even reach a Despair of 19 or 20, in which case they might cease to be playable because they are too under the sway of the Dark Lord.

There’s also a possibility that Hope can get a check even without a player asking for a Hope roll. Maybe the GM can award a check for the party’s success in a difficult situation, and everyone can get a chance to increase their Hope. Similarly, Despair can also get a check when, let’s say, one of the party dies or is seriously injured without healing at the end of the adventure. PCs will have to make a Despair roll at the end of the session to make sure they aren’t overcome by the bad situation.

Maybe this is too swingy or fiddly, but if I make rising Despair into something that is more about role-playing and less about a mechanical disadvantage, then that might give players freedom to ask for Hope rolls during the game to advantage themselves, knowing that if Despair goes up, it’s more about the storytelling than about making their character less effective mechanically.

I’m also curious to try the Nimble 2e (and Cairn/Into the Odd’s) mechanic of only rolling for damage. This would mean hit points need to be slightly higher at first level, and I’m not sure I would use Nimble’s exploding crits mechanic (but I would keep its normal crit rule, where rolling the highest number on the die equals a crit and you can roll again and add to the total). I would keep Nimble’s rule of missing on a roll of 1 too.

I would also use Nimble’s armor class rule, where the AC is lower (normal AC score minus 8), and that’s what gets absorbed on a hit (but only when using Defend as a reaction, see below). Everything hits, basically, except a roll of 1.

Similarly, I would also keep Nimble’s action economy. Every PC gets three actions per round, and those can be used outside their turn as Reactions too (help, interpose, defend, opportunity attack). A PC could potentially attack three times in one round, but the second and third attacks are rolled with increasing disadvantage. Monsters would not get three actions; they would most likely get two actions (move and something else). The more dangerous the monster, the more actions they would get (using DCC’s action dice rules).

I think warriors and dwarves at higher levels will get more actions or special actions to make their classes special.

I would also steal Nimble’s magic system, where PCs would spend mana to cast instead of rolling. I feel like magic in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth rarely “fails.” I’ll keep the DCC spells, though (with a few subtractions… the ones that don’t fit the flavor of Middle-Earth).

My next big step in all this is to make a character sheet, come up with a starting occupations table that’s more Middle-Earth-centric (no gongfarmers, lol), and create the patron tables for Elbereth, Aule, Manwe, and Sauron. Then I gotta cut down the magic spells lists, figure out how to modify the DCC Annual’s Canticles rules to fit with Middle-Earth sensibilities, and playtest with some of my new rules (the Nimble combat and magic stuff, and the Hope/Despair mechanics especially).

I’m still teetering on the edge of my own despair (pun intended) that this homebrewed system won’t work or be worth the effort, but my hope hasn’t faded entirely yet. I think once I put some of these ideas into playtest, see how it goes, then perhaps I’ll feel better.

One may ask: “What’s the point of all this labor?” And I’m not sure I have a good answer. All I know is that I want to try it. I have an idea of playing in Middle-Earth, and I want something that keeps me in an OSR-space while also being a bit more Middle-Earthy than normal OSR DnD. For now, I’m still obsessed with making this homebrew, and despite my struggles, I’m still having fun.

Goal Update: October 2025

October 12, 2025 / / 0 Comments

It’s been awhile. I’m going to try and be as upbeat as possible, but the results speak for themselves: I haven’t achieved most of my goals.

And yet! I’ve achieved some, and that ain’t nothing. Failing to success, right? Would I have achieved even these small things if I hadn’t set myself the goals?

Some may argue that yes, I would still have achieved these few things. And perhaps that’s true. Doing small actions every day does tend to add up to bigger things. My students who are writing for five minutes at the beginning of every class are seeing that happen in real-time. Their notebooks are filling up and they can’t quite believe it.

But there’s a part of me that thinks the simple act of articulating the goals helps me understand what my small actions are in service to. For my students, the daily writing added up to a class party (which we just had last week). For me, the daily/regular actions have added up to the completion of a couple of goals and slight progress on a few more. Again: that ain’t nothing.

What This All Means is precisely that it’s good to have some end goals, but it’s also good (better?) to keep plugging away. Achieving the goals isn’t the measurement; doing the small actions is. And not giving up. That’s important too.

Which is all to say that I’m writing this to self-assess, yes, but even more so, I’m writing this to remind myself that I must keep going. Even in a year’s time, I’ve accomplished things. Not much, but some.

And some is better than none.

Finish writing Norse City Limits (urban fantasy novel): I must admit that I’ve dropped the ball on this. I’m in that messy middle part in which I loathe every choice I’ve made thus far and feel utterly unsuited to the task of writing a novel.

I’ve taken a pause, honestly. Partly because I need to go back and reread and take better notes on what’s happened, but also partly because I think I need to do more reading/research. The Idea Well has run a bit dry. Problems of output are problems of input, and my Norse mythology/film noir input has been anemic these days (months?). I need to get back in touch with that part of myself.

The difficulty? I’ve started a few new projects and those are vying for my time. I feel the heat to work on them, whereas NCL has grown a bit cold.

I was worried about this, especially over the summer, when the novel was really stalled, but I’ve since made peace with it. This feels like how I work. I’m a multi-book reader, and I’m seeing how I’m really a multi-book writer too. It’s not the most efficient way of doing things, and maybe I need to retrain myself to write with white-lightning heat to finish a novel in a month or two or something, but for now, it seems that my process is more meandering.

It’s not like I haven’t been writing.

Maybe not as many words per week as I’d like, but I’m still writing. I’m finishing stories, I’m starting new stories, I’m writing Substack posts, and blog posts. I’m writing almost every day. Maybe not consumable words, but words that could turn into something later (I use my notebook/morning pages writing for ideas all the time).

I’m trying really hard to stop making demands on my Creative Voice. Instead of saying, “I must write this next chapter of __________,” I sit down at the computer, open a few documents (again, intuitively without deliberate thought), and I start cycling back through a story or start with a fresh page and new words, and I let the Creative Voice do its thing.

In fact, that’s precisely how I started this blog post. I let myself start writing what I felt like I needed to start writing, and an update on my writing goals is where Creative Voice led me.

It takes a great deal of trust in this process to operate like this, but I’m trying to trust it.

A bit like my insight on “inventing the process”: I need to stop prescribing the word count (or the work that “must” be done) and simply do what my Creative Voice wants to do. A story doesn’t have to be x-number of words long. I need to stop even thinking about stories as being “short,” “novella,” “novel,” etc. before I start writing them.

Maybe that’s the trouble with NCL? Maybe I committed to “a novel,” before I really had any idea what my Creative Voice wanted to do with this particular character in this particular world.

Well, anyway, I’m almost 50,000 words into the thing, so it must be something longer than a short story. What that thing is, though, I’m not sure yet. Maybe my idea that it must be 100,000 words long or whatever is getting in my way. Or maybe it’s shaping up to be 200k words or more… I certainly have enough story threads going and no idea how to weave them to a satisfying conclusion… It could end up being a door-stopper!

I’m somewhat tempted to throw a bunch of words out. Partly because I feel like certain choices bug me and I don’t like where they led me, but at the time, I didn’t have the courage to go back and redraft from those (seeming?) missteps. Do I have the courage now? Or is this just a way to avoid finishing?

I don’t think it’s a way to avoid finishing. I think it’s my intuition telling me that maybe I need to trust my gut and not keep putting lipstick on a pig.

Maybe I need to do that process reassessment after all and write with lightning heat…

What would that look like?

New Goal: Write an epic fantasy for middle grade readers/my kids (a novel about dragons): This came about because I wanted something for my kids to enjoy that went a little deeper than the dragon books they were bringing home from the library/Scholastic book fair.

I wanted them to have something like I had as a kid, a fantasy series that was epic and archetypal that also didn’t feel watered down. I’m a bit inspired by Katherine Rundell’s thoughts on children’s books and her novel The Explorer in particular, which we listened to as a family on audiobook.

This new dragon fantasy is partly why NCL is on hold.

As I’m typing all this out, I’m thinking I need to heed my own insights about writing one thing with lightning heat… I started this novel (working title: Shards of Stolen Breath) over the summer, and now it’s October and I’m only on Chapter 5. Maybe I need to write with white-heat and finish it as quickly as possible. My boy Thoreau always said, “Write while the heat’s in you.” Don’t let the fire die (hello, dragon pun, I see you).

What does it look like, for me, to write with white-heat?

Does it look like finishing a chapter a day? Write for thirty days, you got yourself thirty chapters. But what if Creative Voice doesn’t want to write a chapter a day? What if she wants to work on that other story that’s been brewing over here for a bit?

Okay, well, I just got done saying I wouldn’t boss my Creative Voice around, but I also wonder if Creative Voice would want to work on Shards every day if I actually, you know, thought about Shards every day. If I wrote about it in my morning pages, and took notes on it throughout the day, and dreamed about it at night.

I have a problem with daydreaming. I’m not doing it enough. I’m crowding out my thoughts with worries and a million other things. I need to schedule some daydream time.

Like, deliberately sit down (or go for a walk) and think about the story. Think about Shards.

I’ll admit that I’ve always been intrigued by guys like Moorcock (and Sanderson too) who can write something in a few days/months. Sanderson has spoken about this before. Write the novel as fast as you can, before the fire dies.

I like systems. I’m tempted to make this system for myself. The daydream about something, write it as quickly as possible, don’t let the fire die. Keep daydreaming so the fire stays stoked. (I swear I’m not writing all these dragon/fire puns on purpose.)

Isn’t it funny how writing all this out has led to insights? I hope they’re insights.

Finish writing Ysbaddaden and the Game of Chess (second book in Merlin series): Similar to NCL, this one is on hold. Perhaps it’ll be faster to redraft from word one on this as well. I’m tempted, mightily tempted to redraft from word one both NCL and Ysbaddaden.

Do I have the courage to try it? Enough of a fool?

Finish a short story set in my sword and sorcery world: Not yet.

Finish a short story about a mother who learns a terrible secret about her son: Not yet.

Finish a short story set in my Children of Valesh universe: Not yet.

New Goal: Finish a short story set in my magical music academy world: Not yet, but almost! I started a story called “Bronwyn Harper” a little while back and I’m getting close to finishing it. Between this story and Shards, I’ve been writing steadily. I also finished a random short story about a dragon egg and submitted that to Writers of the Future, so I need to remember that I haven’t been idle simply because I haven’t finished one of my big novels.

Publish my short story collection: Yes, I did it!

This was a big goal for me in 2025, and I’m happy to report that I met it. A bright spot for sure. It took me longer than I’d hoped, but the key thing is that I did it.

Finish a novella in my City of Ashes series: Not yet. Maybe never? This was a thing my Creative Writing students challenged me to do, but I’m not loving it. Time will tell.

Blog every day: I am not blogging every day, but I am still blogging. I like that this is a place I can continue to return to. I still aspire to blog every day, but it’s okay if I don’t.

Send out Substack newsletter every two weeks: Not yet, but I’m getting better. I’m prioritizing it a bit more. I’m looking through my notebook each week with an eye toward what can go on the Substack, and I’m loosening up my internal “rules” for what I should write about. The topics and essays are a little more wide-ranging, and I find this suits my personality and writing goals better.

Play more role-playing games with my kids, my husband, family, and friends: This is happening and I couldn’t be happier! I just played a one-on-one session of Caverns of Thracia with my eight-year-old son the other day, and it was glorious. And now that my Dolmenwood stuff has arrived, I’m ready to start up campaigns with family and friends. As a family, we’ve been playing Mausritter, Hero Kids, and DnD 5e.

I’m also playing in a regular Shadowdark game, and I’m running Thracia as an open table at a FLGS.

This has been an unqualified success.

Create some RPG modules for Norse City Limits and Merlin’s Last Magic: Not yet.

Make a “Saturday Morning” zine series and publish an issue every month: Not yet.

Make other zines: Not yet.

Read more books with my kids (Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Half-Magic, James and the Giant Peach, the Hobbit, the Silver Chair, Horse and His Boy, Magician’s Nephew, Last Battle, more Little House books, How to Train Your Dragon series, Harry Potter): I was doing this, and then we stalled, and now I’m ready to make this a priority again.

I think we need to force our kids a bit on these. They are sometimes reluctant to listen to these older books, but we think it’ll be good for them. First up, NIMH and A Horse and His Boy, then a retry with The Hobbit.

Start naalbinding again (finish the hat I started for my son and make another one for my other son): Ugh, not yet. I want to prioritize this. My son’s head will be too big if I don’t finish soon!

Practice my cartooning/comics drawing (for the zines): Hmm… a bit? Not much, though. Need to do more daily drawing.

Start a podcast: This is a new goal, but I have an idea I’m excited about and which I think my readers will really like. New goal for 2026 is to actually record the episodes and maybe even launch.

Write essays, poems, and fiction that will serve as models for my students next school year: Not much, and I’m wondering if I want to keep this as a goal. I’m not saying I never do this, but I don’t think I need to set it as a goal for myself. I can write things as needed and dictated by the students I have each year. But making it a personal goal feels like an unnecessary step. I’ll do the work if I need to as part of my day job; no need to “focus” on it here.

Bonus achievement: The dragon egg story I wrote on a whim and submitted to WotF. I was using a writing prompt, thinking it would just be an exercise, and then it turned into a whole story. Just goes to show that “practice” for writers can turn into real work (as is true for nearly all artists). Who knows if it’s any good, but I had fun writing it.

Return to DCC RPG

April 23, 2025 / / 0 Comments

I’m playing a solo Dolmenwood game right now, my kids and I are playing some adventures using Hero Kids, and I might be joining an open table for Shadowdark in the very near future, but I’ve also been cooking up another solo adventure/campaign using the Emirates of Ylaruam gazetteer from TSR, and I was thinking of using Cairn for my system, and yet now, I’m getting the itch to return to my first OSR love: Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG.

I’ve played several games using DCC, and I’ve loved each and every one, but I find that players don’t always love it as much as I do. Maybe I’m not a very good Judge, maybe the players have wanted a more typical 5e experience, I don’t know. But I’ve moved away from DCC RPG partly because there are so many new games I’m interested in (Dolmenwood!!), and partly because I’ve found it hard to get a regular game going.

But if I love it so much, and I’m planning a solo campaign, why not use DCC for my solo campaign? It’s an obvious choice!

One thing I’m interested in is using DCC for a homebrew. Although Goodman Games makes excellent adventure modules, I’m more and more curious to see how DCC works when using the core rules but adventuring in my own world (“my own” is a stretch… I am using the Ylaruam stuff from TSR… but I’m not using any pre-made modules; I’m making a sandbox and letting my PCs go wherever, no set story).

One of the things I love most about DCC RPG’s core rulebook is the way it encourages the judge and players to develop their own world: make your own patrons and deities and monsters and magic items and everything else in between. If dice rolls lead to wild results, play out those results and see what happens. A spell goes awry and transports the party to another dimension? Cool! Go explore that dimension. A PC dies and his friends want him back? Cool! Travel to the underworld and rescue him. The warrior wants to learn a new fighting style? Cool! Seek out the legendary sword master of the far-off mountains and convince him to train you.

The Goodman Games modules are fun, but one of the things that drew me to DCC RPG is the way it inspired my own adventuring and world-building ideas. I like the modules for one-shots, or even as locations/encounters within a hex crawl, and I might use a few as I solo-play, but I’m really in the mood for creating my own map of adventures, my own locations, my own quests. I’ve never really used DCC for that kind of play yet, and I want to try.

I’m inspired on some level by Bob the Worldbuilder’s excellent Skrym resource. By using the Ylaruam gazetteer and the Skrym random tables (as well as the tables in the DCC core book), I feel confident I can make a robust solo campaign.

In some ways, I wonder if Goodman Games’s success with its modules has hampered or undersold DCC’s ability to work as a homebrew game. The game itself has so many interesting quirks and tables that create stories simply by the effects of a spell roll or treasure table roll or patron roll. The modules are wonderfully weird and well-designed, offering the perfect DCC “flavor,” but as a system, I think the DCC core book gets overshadowed by this robust line of adventures. I’m genuinely curious to see how well the system holds up in a sandbox campaign that is not based on any DCC RPG modules or settings.

Lone Wolf Christmas

December 30, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I’ve written before about my love for the Long Wolf RPG adventure books, but it was only recently that I found out the books have been reprinted with snazzy new covers in larger paperback format.

So what did I do with my Christmas giftcards? I bought the first two in the series, of course!

When I opened the envelope the other day, my children were all very interested in these books (especially after I explained how much I loved them as a kid), but to my surprise, it was my middle child who asked if I would read the books to him so he could play. He’s not the one I would peg as being “into” fantasy the way my oldest is; I could only guess that he was intrigued by the monsters and potential for fighting. Whatever the reason, he asked several times before I had even thrown the packaging away, so after taking care of the padded envelope, he and I settled onto the couch, pencil and book in hand.

Thus began our nearly ninety-minute gaming excursion in which I got to witness the Lone Wolf books through the eyes of a child.

I had read them most recently on my own, as an adult, and while they were a nostalgic trip for me, I was approaching them with thirty-plus years of life experience and fantasy fandom and all the other things that make a grown-up a bit inoculated to the sheer joy of playing an rpg adventure book like this. I loved them for the memories they conjured, and I liked them for the old-school, somewhat simplistic fun they provided to adult-me.

But playing with my eight-year-old son was something different entirely. Each choice was a considered one, sometimes accompanied by checking the excellent and evocative map of Map of the Lastlands provided in the front, sometimes talking aloud the risks and potential rewards of the various options. My son really weighed each choice, often making his decision because something would be “nice to do” or “helpful” or “because I don’t want to hurt anybody” or simply because venturing forth into a dark tunnel under a hill would be cool.

When we faced off against monsters, and he had to point his finger at the number grid in the back, waiting for me to read the result from the Combat Results Table, there was real tension and anticipation in his face. When he scored victories, he would pump his fist and cry, “Yes!” with such beautiful innocence, that I couldn’t help being overwhelmed at seeing the pureness of his joy.

After he made each choice and waited for me to the turn the page and read the next entry, I could see him tense up, wondering if he’d made the right decision, worried that he hadn’t. And when his choice resulted in something good, the relief on his face was infectious.

I was seeing what it must have been like for me as a kid: the same anticipation, the same dread, the same relief, the same joy. I could no longer experience that innocent pleasure myself, but I could watch it on the face of my child and get a time-traveled glimpse of my own first foray into the world of Lone Wolf. I was the adult, the grown-up, the one whose emotions were a bit too calloused to fist pump after a victory against a burrow-crawler, but I could bear witness to my child’s excitement, to the gleam of wonder in his eyes, and that gleam was surely once my own, when I was eight years old and reading the Lone Wolf books, and the Endless Quest books, and the Choose Your Own Adventure books off in a corner somewhere, lost in my own world of quests and magic.

I’m glad I could give my son the experience of the Lone Wolf books, but I’m also grateful for his gift to me: the gleam in his eyes and the wonder in his smile.

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